Lesser periwinkle (Vinca minor L.) invasion alters the composition of soil invertebrate communities in two mixed deciduous forests
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Invasive plant species threaten biodiversity and ecosystem stability, yet their impacts on soil invertebrate communities remain understudied globally. Vinca minor L. (common name: Lesser periwinkle) is an aggressive groundcover invasive plant widely distributed in North America, yet its ecological consequences for belowground fauna are mainly unknown. This study aimed to assess whether V. minor invasion alters soil invertebrate community composition, richness, and abundance in two forested ecosystems in Canada. We conducted a field study across two forested sites, sampling soil invertebrates from naturally invaded and uninvaded plots (n = 40). Invertebrates were extracted using Berlese-Tullgren funnels, identified to morphospecies, and analyzed for changes in abundance, richness, and community composition using Generalized Linear Models, Permanova , and distance-based redundancy analysis (db-RDA). We identified 1183 invertebrates across 12 taxonomic groups, including mites (Oribatida, Mesostigmata, Prostigmata), springtails, annelids, isopods, and arachnids. Invertebrate richness but not abundance was lower in invaded plots than in uninvaded plots, albeit not significantly. For example, spider presence was significantly reduced in invaded plots (p = 0.027). Vinca minor invasion significantly altered community composition ( Permanova , p = 0.006), with greater dissimilarity among invaded plots. Db-RDA confirmed that site location and V. minor invasion were key drivers of soil invertebrate community variation. Our findings suggest that V. minor invasion modifies soil invertebrate community structure. Given the widespread distribution of V. minor in North America, its ecological impacts on soil biodiversity raise concerns about potential species losses and alterations in ecosystem processes. • Vinca minor invasion can alter the composition of soil invertebrate communities. • Invaded areas lacked some invertebrate taxa (e.g., spiders). • Invasion effects varied by taxonomic group, indicating differential sensitivity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".