Soil community history strengthens belowground multitrophic functioning across plant diversity levels in a grassland experiment
Biodiversity experiments revealed that plant diversity loss can decrease ecosystem functions across trophic levels. To address why such biodiversity-function relationships strengthen over time, we established experimental mesocosms replicating a gradient in plant species richness across treatments of shared versus non-shared history of (1) the plant community and (2) the soil fauna community. After 4 months, we assessed the multitrophic functioning of soil fauna via biomass stocks and energy fluxes across the food webs. We find that soil community history significantly enhanced belowground multitrophic function via changes in biomass stocks and community-average body masses across the food webs. However, variation in plant diversity and plant community history had unclear effects. Our findings underscore the importance of long-term community assembly processes for soil fauna-driven ecosystem function, with species richness and short-term plant adaptations playing a minimal role. Disturbances that disrupt soil community stability may hinder fauna-driven ecosystem functions, while recovery may require several years.
Authors
- Bernhard Klarner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1867-4911)
- Ulrich Brose (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9156-583X)
- Anton Potapov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4456-1710)
- Nico Eisenhauer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0371-6720)
- Stefan Scheu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4350-9520)
- Angelos Amyntas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3777-3843)
- Anna‐Maria Madaj (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5959-6484)
- Leonardo Bassi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2604-8665)
- Benoît Gauzens (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7748-0362)
- Benjamin Rosenbaum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2815-0874)
- Krassimira Ilieva‐Makulec (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7570-3822)
- Jingyi Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0479-3656)
- Pamela Medina van Berkum
Institutions
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DE)
- Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (DE)
- Institute of Zoology (KZ)
- Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz (DE)
- Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw (PL)
- University of Göttingen (DE)
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena (DE)
- Leipzig University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-11-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54401-z
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.15
Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung Halle-Jena-Leipzig