Greater trophic diversity of soil animal communities under agricultural land use and tropical climate
Soil fauna contributes to a wide range of ecosystem functions via their trophic activities. Here we investigate how trophic diversity of soil animals varies across functional groups and major biomes. We use stable isotope analysis (<sup>13</sup>C/<sup>12</sup>C and <sup>15</sup>N/<sup>14</sup>N ratios) of 17,306 samples of 28 high-rank taxa from 456 sites across 19 countries to inspect the variability in trophic diversity across climate regions and land-use types. Trophic diversity of soil animal communities is higher for microbial feeders than for detritivores and predators, in agricultural ecosystems compared with woodlands (+32%) and in tropical compared with temperate climates (+40%). Higher trophic diversity is related to more diverse basal resources and longer trophic chains, which could reflect greater niche partitioning in resource-limited environments. Our findings suggest that soil animals could broaden their trophic niches under agricultural land use and possibly in response to warming, but whether such foraging flexibility may offset the loss of trophic specialists remains to be investigated.
Authors
- V.A. Zryanin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4769-5554)
- Kateřina Sam (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3436-0579)
- Bernhard Klarner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1867-4911)
- Michael Steinwandter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8545-6047)
- Alena Krause
- Di Ajeng Prameswari
- Mark Maraun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2736-8548)
- Melanie M. Pollierer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1498-2362)
- I. I. Lyubechanskii (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4778-2102)
- Nicole Scheunemann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1845-6236)
- Fujio Hyodo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8344-9353)
- Winda Ika Susanti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9925-841X)
- Felicity Crotty (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7363-224X)
- Carol Melody
- Anastasia Yu. Gorbunova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8261-7180)
- Daniil I. Korobushkin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9960-2911)
- Anton A. Goncharov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3017-4557)
- Zhijing Xie
- Xue Pan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5984-7167)
- Malte Jochum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8728-1145)
- Ingo Grass
- Andrew D. Barnes
- Yuanyuan Huang
- Donghui Wu
- Olaf Schmidt
- Anton Potapov
- Zheng Zhou
- Ulrich Brose
- Nico Eisenhauer
- Alexei V. Tiunov
- Oksana L. Rozanova
- Stefan Scheu
- Sergey M. Tsurikov
- Yan Zhang
- Julia Seeber
- Zhipeng Li
Institutions
- University College Dublin (IE)
- University of Hohenheim (DE)
- Eurac Research (IT)
- Julius Kühn-Institut (DE)
- Okayama University (JP)
- Northeast Normal University (CN)
- Novosibirsk State University (RU)
- Universität Innsbruck (AT)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ)
- University of Würzburg (DE)
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DE)
- Ricardo (United Kingdom) (GB)
- University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (CZ)
- Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals (RU)
- Dresden International University (DE)
- Institute of Urban Environment (CN)
- Institute of Entomology (CZ)
- Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz (DE)
- International Center for Tropical Agriculture (VN)
- International University Institute (IHI) Zittau (DE)
- Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution (RU)
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Biology Centre (CZ)
- University of Waikato (NZ)
- University of Göttingen (DE)
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena (DE)
- N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod (RU)
- Leipzig University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Ecology & Evolution
- Published
- 2026-03-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03014-4
- Primary Topic
- Isotope Analysis in Ecology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00