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Plant diversity effects on soil food webs are stronger than those of elevated CO 2 and N deposition in a long-term grassland experiment
Open accessAbstract
Recent metaanalyses suggest biodiversity loss affects the functioning of ecosystems to a similar extent as other global environmental change agents. However, the abundance and functioning of soil organisms have been hypothesized to be much less responsive to such changes, particularly in plant diversity, than aboveground variables, although tests of this hypothesis are extremely rare. We examined the responses of soil food webs (soil microorganisms, nematodes, microarthropods) to 13-y manipulation of multiple environmental factors that are changing at global scales—specifically plant species richness, atmospheric CO 2 , and N deposition—in a grassland experiment in Minnesota. Plant diversity was a strong driver of the structure and functioning of soil food webs through several bottom-up (resource control) effects, whereas CO 2 and N only had modest effects. We found few interactions between plant diversity and CO 2 and N, likely because of weak interactive effects of those factors on resource availability (e.g., root biomass). Plant diversity effects likely were large because high plant diversity promoted the accumulation of soil organic matter in the site’s sandy, organic matter–poor soils. Plant diversity effects were not explained by the presence of certain plant functional groups. Our results underline the prime importance of plant diversity loss cascading to soil food webs (density and diversity of soil organisms) and functions. Because the present results suggest prevailing plant diversity effects and few interactions with other global change drivers, protecting plant diversity may be of high priority to maintain the biodiversity and functioning of soils in a changing world.
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“Although we cannot rule out that the proposed mechanisms are particularly pronounced at the field site of The Jena Experiment, the underlying relationships between plant diversity and soil carbon storage 17,24 , soil microbial biomass and activity 37,45,46 , and root biomass 24,47 have been reported in several independent experimental settings providing some evidence that the proposed links are of”
From Plant diversity increases soil microbial activity and soil carbon storage (2015) · cites this paper as [45]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Eisenhauer, N., Dobies, T., Cesarz, S., Hobbie, S. E., Meyer, R. J., Worm, K., & Reich, P. B.
- Affiliations
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena (DE)
- Poznań University of Life Sciences (PL)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Departments of bForest Resources and
- Western Sydney University (AU)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2013-04
- Volume
- 110
- Issue
- 17
- Pages
- 6889-6894
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3637779
- OpenAlex
- W2145489220
- Cited by
- 315
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 39 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 3
- FWCI
- 25.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0322057, 0620652, 0080382, 0716587, 9411972)
- U.S. Department of Energy (FG0296ER62291, DE‐FG02‐, FC02-06ER64158)
- Michigan Technological University
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Ei 862/1, 862/2, Ei 862/2)
- Office of Science (DEFC0206ER64158)
- Division of Environmental Biology (9411972, 0620652, 0322057, 0080382)
- Biological and Environmental Research
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Interactions
- Keywords
- plant diversity, soil food webs, elevated CO2, nitrogen deposition, global change, bottom-up effects, soil microbes, nematodes, microarthropods, soil organic matter, root biomass, plant functional groups, biodiversity loss, grassland, long-term experiment
- MeSH terms
- Carbon Dioxide, Poaceae, Minnesota, Nitrogen, Soil, Linear Models, Biomass, Food Chain, Biodiversity, Climate Change
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