Maple vs Oak Leaves for Millipedes

[InspectorGadget]

Oak is always held up as the best source for both flake soil and the leaf litter in a millipede enclosure. I ran across this article tonight. It is written primarily about why oak is the preferred leaf litter for acidic aquatic setups, but its main argument for this rests on the premise that, unlike most deciduous trees, maple doesn't pull nutrients back in the trunk of the tree in fall, and thus the leaves contain more basic nutrients such as calcium, magnesium and potassium comparatively. It mentions this results in faster break down in the leaves by soil biota including millipedes.

Is there any reason to believe that maple leaves aren't the best leaf litter?

The only thing I can think of is that more free nutrients might yield faster mold growth (though if you have springtails this is less of a concern).

Just curious. I generally just use whatever deciduous leaf litter I can gather (I just had some tree limbs fall in a storm, so my millies are enjoying mostly basswood right now.)

 

[AuroraLights]

A while ago I was curious about something similar myself, so I did some research into calcium contents of different leaves. Here are the sources I found:

1. Calcium Content of Hardwood Litter Four Times that from Pine; Nitrogen Double - Louis J. Metz, 1952
You can download the paper for free and there's a great table on the first page comparing lots of different trees.

2. amount and mineral nutrient content of freshly fallen leaf litter in the hardwood forests of central New York - R.F. Jr. Chandler, 1941
I couldn't find the full article for this one, but the abstract contains the following statement: "The calcium content of the litter was high in the case of the bitternut hickory basswood, black cherry, tulip poplar, white ash, and aspen. The lowest calcium content was found in beech, white oak, red oak, and red maple. The magnesium content proved to be highest in the case of bitternut hickory, basswood, black cherry, and tulip popular."

3. INFLUENCE OF OAKS ON THE ACCUMULATION OF CALCIUM IN FORESTS - George T. Weaver and Jon D. Jones, 1987
For some reason I couldn't find a web page for this one, but you can download the PDF directly from here:
http://www.ncrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/ch/ch06/
It has a good table on page 3 that compares the amount of calcium in leaves, wood and bark of various trees.


Interestingly, from these papers it seems that oak leaves actually have a relatively low level of calcium compared to some other hardwoods, so it must be favoured for other reasons. In the first study Red Maple actually had a lower Ca level than any of the six oak species studied, but the third study found that Sugar Maple had a slightly higher level than all four oaks in that study.
The types of tree that came out with the highest calcium were actually Hickory, Basswood/Linden and Tulip Tree. All of those three had high levels in at least two of the three studies. Although interestingly the unnamed Hickory species in the first study had a very low level, despite the three species in the the other studies all having high levels.

 

[itstracc]

I don't know too much about botany and I've never really bothered to look too much into it since I give my millipedes a variety of hardwoods anyway, but I've seen several people mention that oak has a higher chitin content than other hardwoods, or at least more than maple. I've never researched it myself though, so I can't speak for the validity of that.

 

[AuroraLights]

I don't know too much about botany and I've never really bothered to look too much into it since I give my millipedes a variety of hardwoods anyway, but I've seen several people mention that oak has a higher chitin content than other hardwoods, or at least more than maple. I've never researched it myself though, so I can't speak for the validity of that.

I don't think any plants contain chitin, are you sure they didn't say cellulose or lignin?

 

[itstracc]

I don't think any plants contain chitin, are you sure they didn't say cellulose or lignin?

It was definitely chitin! You could probably search the term in the myriapod forums since that's where I've seen it. But again I know nothing on botany, I'm just repeating what I've seen before haha