【土壤生物与生态系统功能】Cameron Wagg^ab S. Franz Bender^ab Franco Widmer^c and Marcel G. A. van der Heijden^abd1. Soil biodiversity and soil community composition determine ecosystem multifunctionality. PNAS doi: 10.1073-pnas.1320054111

Abstract

Biodiversity loss has become a global concern as evidence accumulates that it will negatively affect ecosystem services on which society depends. So far most studies have focused on the ecological consequences of above-ground biodiversity loss; yet a large part of Earth’s biodiversity is literally hidden below ground. Whether reductions of biodiversity in soil communities below ground have consequences for the overall performance of an ecosystem remains unresolved. It is important to investigate this in view of recent observations that soil biodiversity is declining and that soil communities are changing upon land use intensification. We established soil communities differing in composition and diversity and tested their impact on eight ecosystem functions in model grassland communities. We show that soil biodiversity loss and simplification of soil community composition impair multiple ecosystem functions including plant diversity decomposition nutrient retention and nutrient cycling. The average response of all measured ecosystem functions (ecosystem multifunctionality) exhibited a strong positive linear relationship to indicators of soil biodiversity suggesting that soil community composition is a