OPENAIRE OpenAire Research@WUR Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) Leiden University Scholarly Publications Repository UnpayWall PURE Aarhus University Crossref Microsoft Academic Graph The University of Manchester - Institutional Repository Europe PubMed Central PubMed Central Pure University of Manchester Copenhagen University Research Information System Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Open Access 2023-11-15 2021-10-07 2021-10-07 <p> There is widespread concern that cessation of grazing in historically grazed ecosystems is causing biotic homogenization and biodiversity loss. We used 12 montane grassland sites along an 800 km north￢ﾀﾓsouth gradient across the UK, to test whether cessation of grazing affects local ￎﾱ - and ￎﾲ -diversity of below-ground food webs. We show cessation of grazing leads to strongly decreased ￎﾱ -diversity of most groups of soil microbes and fauna, particularly of relatively rare taxa. By contrast, the ￎﾲ -diversity varied between groups of soil organisms. While most soil microbial communities exhibited increased homogenization after cessation of grazing, we observed decreased homogenization for soil fauna after cessation of grazing. Overall, our results indicate that exclusion of domesticated herbivores from historically grazed montane grasslands has far-ranging negative consequences for diversity of below-ground food webs. This underscores the importance of grazers for maintaining the diversity of below-ground communities, which play a central role in ecosystem functioning. </p 2. Zero hunger 570 Global Change and Conservation Food Chain soil communities Microbiota land abandonment 500 Biodiversity 15. Life on land Grassland biotic homogenization long-term experiments Soil soil microbes α-diversity Life Science grazing soil fauna Schrama, Maarten, Quist, Casper, de Groot, Arjen, Cieraad, Ellen, Ashworth, Deborah, Laros, Ivo, Hestbjerg Hansen, Lars, Leff, Jonathan, Fierer, Noah, Bardgett, Richard, 2021-10-07 journalpaper <p> There is widespread concern that cessation of grazing in historically grazed ecosystems is causing biotic homogenization and biodiversity loss. We used 12 montane grassland sites along an 800 km north￢ﾀﾓsouth gradient across the UK, to test whether cessation of grazing affects local ￎﾱ - and ￎﾲ -diversity of below-ground food webs. We show cessation of grazing leads to strongly decreased ￎﾱ -diversity of most groups of soil microbes and fauna, particularly of relatively rare taxa. By contrast, the ￎﾲ -diversity varied between groups of soil organisms. While most soil microbial communities exhibited increased homogenization after cessation of grazing, we observed decreased homogenization for soil fauna after cessation of grazing. Overall, our results indicate that exclusion of domesticated herbivores from historically grazed montane grasslands has far-ranging negative consequences for diversity of below-ground food webs. This underscores the importance of grazers for maintaining the diversity of below-ground communities, which play a central role in ecosystem functioning. </p Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs 1887/3716986 https://doi.org/1887/3716986 883621