{"type": "FeatureCollection", "features": [{"id": "10.1111/geb.13273", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:20:41Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2021-02-21", "title": "Global projections of the soil microbiome in the Anthropocene", "description": "AbstractAim

Soil microbes are essential for maintenance of life\uffe2\uff80\uff90supporting ecosystem services, but projections of how these microbes will be affected by global change scenarios are lacking. Therefore, our aim was to provide projections of future soil microbial distribution using several scenarios of global change.

Location

Global.

Time period

1950\uffe2\uff80\uff932090.

Major taxa studied

Bacteria and fungi.

Methods

We used a global database of soil microbial communities across six continents to estimate past and future trends of the soil microbiome. To do so, we used structural equation models to include the direct and indirect effects of changes in climate and land use in our predictions, using current climate (temperature and precipitation) and land\uffe2\uff80\uff90use projections between 1950 and 2090.

Results

Local bacterial richness will increase in all scenarios of change in climate and land use considered, although this increase will be followed by a generalized community homogenization process affecting >\uffc2\uffa085% of terrestrial ecosystems. Changes in the relative abundance of functional genes associated with the increases in bacterial richness are also expected. Based on an ecological cluster analysis, our results suggest that phylotypes such asGeodermatophilusspp. (typical desert bacteria),Mycobacteriumsp. (which are known to include important human pathogens),Streptomyces mirabilis(major producers of antibiotic resistance genes) or potential fungal soil\uffe2\uff80\uff90borne plant pathogens belonging to Ascomycota fungi (Venturiaspp.,Devriesiaspp.) will become more abundant in their communities.

Main conclusions

Our results provide evidence that climate change has a stronger influence on soil microbial communities than change in land use (often including deforestation and agricultural expansion), although most of the effects of climate are indirect, through other environmental variables (e.g., changes in soil pH). The same was found for microbial functions such as the prevalence of phosphate transport genes. We provide reliable predictions about the changes in the global distribution of microbial communities, showing an increase in alpha diversity and a homogenization of soil microbial communities in the Anthropocene.Little is known about the role of ant colonies in regulating the distribution and diversity of soil microbial communities across large spatial scales. Here, we conducted a survey across >1000\uffe2\uff80\uff89km in eastern Australia and found that, compared with surrounding bare soils, ant colonies promoted the richness (number of phylotypes) and relative abundance of rare taxa of fungi and bacteria. Ant nests were also an important reservoir for plant pathogens. Our study also provides a portfolio of microbial phylotypes only found in ant nests, and which are associated with high nutrient availability. Together, our work highlights the fact that ant nests are an important refugia for microbial diversity.Many soil bacteria and fungi remain unclassified at the highest taxonomic ranks (e.g. phyla level), which hampers our ability to assess the ecology and functional capabilities of these soil organisms in terrestrial ecosystems globally. The first logical step toward the classification of these unknown soil taxa is to identify potential locations on Earth where these unclassified bacteria and fungi are feasibly most prevalent. To do this, here I used data from a global soil survey across 235 locations, including amplicon sequencing information for fungal and bacterial communities, and generated global atlases highlighting those soils where the percentages of taxa of bacteria and fungi with an unknown phyla are expected to be more prevalent. Results indicate that soil samples with the largest percentage of fungal taxa with an unknown phyla can be found in dry forests and grasslands, while those with the largest percentage of bacterial taxa with an unknown phyla are found in boreal and tropical forests. This information can be used by taxonomists and microbiologists to target these potentially new soil taxa.Under controlled laboratory conditions, high and low ammonium availability are known to favor soil ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) communities, respectively. However, whether this niche segregation is maintained under field conditions in terrestrial ecosystems remains unresolved, particularly at the global scale. We hypothesized that perennial vegetation might favor AOB vs. AOA communities compared with adjacent open areas devoid of perennial vegetation (i.e., bare soil) via several mechanisms, including increasing the amount of ammonium in soil. To test this niche-differentiation hypothesis, we conducted a global field survey including 80 drylands from 6 continents. Data supported our hypothesis, as soils collected under plant canopies had higher levels of ammonium, as well as higher richness (number of terminal restriction fragments; T-RFs) and abundance (qPCR amoA genes) of AOB, and lower richness and abundance of AOA, than those collected in open areas located between plant canopies. Some of the reported associations between plant canopies and AOA and AOB communities can be a consequence of the higher organic matter and available N contents found under plant canopies. Other aspects of soils associated with vegetation including shading and microclimatic conditions might also help explain our results. Our findings provide strong evidence for niche differentiation between AOA and AOB communities in drylands worldwide, advancing our understanding of their ecology and biogeography at the global scale.The relationship between biodiversity and biomass has been a long standing debate in ecology. Soil biodiversity and biomass are essential drivers of ecosystem functions. However, unlike plant communities, little is known about how the diversity and biomass of soil microbial communities are interlinked across globally distributed biomes, and how variations in this relationship influence ecosystem function. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a field survey across global biomes, with contrasting vegetation and climate types. We show that soil carbon (C) content is associated to the microbial diversity\uffe2\uff80\uff93biomass relationship and ratio in soils across global biomes. This ratio provides an integrative index to identify those locations on Earth wherein diversity is much higher compared with biomass and vice versa. The soil microbial diversity-to-biomass ratio peaks in arid environments with low C content, and is very low in C-rich cold environments. Our study further advances that the reductions in soil C content associated with land use intensification and climate change could cause dramatic shifts in the microbial diversity-biomass ratio, with potential consequences for broad soil processes.Soils harbor the most diverse naturally evolved antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) on Earth, with implications for human health and ecosystem functioning. How ARGs evolve as soils develop over centuries, to millennia (i.e., pedogenesis), remains poorly understood, which introduces uncertainty in predictions of the dynamics of ARGs under changing environmental conditions. Here we investigated changes in the soil resistome by analyzing 16 globally distributed soil chronosequences, from centuries to millennia, spanning a wide range of ecosystem types and substrate age ranges. We show that ARG abundance and diversity decline only after millions of years of soil development as observed in very old chronosequences. Moreover, our data show increases in soil organic carbon content and microbial biomass as soil develops that were negatively correlated with the abundance and diversity of soil ARGs. This work reveals natural dynamics of soil ARGs during pedogenesis and suggests that such ecological patterns are predictable, which together advances our understanding of the environmental drivers of ARGs in terrestrial environments.Increasing atmospheric CO2 stimulates photosynthesis which can increase net primary production (NPP), but at longer timescales may not necessarily increase plant biomass. Here we analyse the four decade-long CO2-enrichment experiments in woody ecosystems that measured total NPP and biomass. CO2 enrichment increased biomass increment by 1.05\uffe2\uff80\uff89\uffc2\uffb1\uffe2\uff80\uff890.26\uffe2\uff80\uff89kg\uffe2\uff80\uff89C\uffe2\uff80\uff89m\uffe2\uff88\uff922 over a full decade, a 29.1\uffe2\uff80\uff89\uffc2\uffb1\uffe2\uff80\uff8911.7% stimulation of biomass gain in these early-secondary-succession temperate ecosystems. This response is predictable by combining the CO2 response of NPP (0.16\uffe2\uff80\uff89\uffc2\uffb1\uffe2\uff80\uff890.03\uffe2\uff80\uff89kg\uffe2\uff80\uff89C\uffe2\uff80\uff89m\uffe2\uff88\uff922\uffe2\uff80\uff89y\uffe2\uff88\uff921) and the CO2-independent, linear slope between biomass increment and cumulative NPP (0.55\uffe2\uff80\uff89\uffc2\uffb1\uffe2\uff80\uff890.17). An ensemble of terrestrial ecosystem models fail to predict both terms correctly. Allocation to wood was a driver of across-site, and across-model, response variability and together with CO2-independence of biomass retention highlights the value of understanding drivers of wood allocation under ambient conditions to\uffc2\uffa0correctly interpret\uffc2\uffa0and predict CO2 responses.

", "keywords": ["[SDE] Environmental Sciences", "0106 biological sciences", "0301 basic medicine", "TREE MORTALITY", "550", "Climate", "Plant Biology", "Biochemistry", "01 natural sciences", "Trees", "atmospheric carbon dioxide", "ddc:550", "Biomass", "Photosynthesis", "Ecology", "Q", "FOREST PRODUCTIVITY", "Forestry", "Biological Sciences", "woody", "decadal biomass", "Wood", "[SDE]Environmental Sciences", "GROWTH", "ecosystems", "CARBON ALLOCATION", "570", "Science", "Biophysics", "333", "SWEETGUM PLANTATION", "Article", "03 medical and health sciences", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "forest ecology", "plant biomass", "Biochemistry", " Biophysics", " and Structural Biology", "Ecosystem", "photosynthesis", "Carbon Dioxide", "15. Life on land", "[SDE.BE] Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "NITROGEN", "CLIMATE", "13. Climate action", "and Structural Biology", "[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "ELEVATED CO2", "SOIL CARBON", "RESPONSES"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08348-1.pdf"}, {"href": "https://arrow.tudublin.ie/context/scschbioart/article/1214/viewcontent/nature.pdf"}, {"href": "https://escholarship.org/content/qt5m5806sh/qt5m5806sh.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08348-1"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature%20Communications", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1038/s41467-019-08348-1", "name": "item", "description": "10.1038/s41467-019-08348-1", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1038/s41467-019-08348-1"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2019-02-14T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/s41467-019-10373-z", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:21Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-05-30", "title": "A few Ascomycota taxa dominate soil fungal communities worldwide", "description": "Abstract

Despite having key functions in terrestrial ecosystems, information on the dominant soil fungi and their ecological preferences at the global scale is lacking. To fill this knowledge gap, we surveyed 235 soils from across the globe. Our findings indicate that 83 phylotypes (<0.1% of the retrieved fungi), mostly belonging to wind dispersed, generalist Ascomycota, dominate soils globally. We identify patterns and ecological drivers of dominant soil fungal taxa occurrence, and present a map of their distribution in soils worldwide. Whole-genome comparisons with less dominant, generalist fungi point at a significantly higher number of genes related to stress-tolerance and resource uptake in the dominant fungi, suggesting that they might be better in colonising a wide range of environments. Our findings constitute a major advance in our understanding of the ecology of fungi, and have implications for the development of strategies to preserve them and the ecosystem functions they provide.Identifying the global drivers of soil priming is essential to understanding C cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. We conducted a survey of soils across 86 globally-distributed locations, spanning a wide range of climates, biotic communities, and soil conditions, and evaluated the apparent soil priming effect using13C-glucose labeling. Here we show that the magnitude of the positive apparent priming effect (increase in CO2release through accelerated microbial biomass turnover) was negatively associated with SOC content and microbial respiration rates. Our statistical modeling suggests that apparent priming effects tend to be negative in more mesic sites associated with higher SOC contents. In contrast, a single-input of labile C causes positive apparent priming effects in more arid locations with low SOC contents. Our results provide solid evidence that SOC content plays a critical role in regulating apparent priming effects, with important implications for the improvement of C cycling models under global change scenarios.The importance of soil age as an ecosystem driver across biomes remains largely unresolved. By combining a cross-biome global field survey, including data for 32 soil, plant, and microbial properties in 16 soil chronosequences, with a global meta-analysis, we show that soil age is a significant ecosystem driver, but only accounts for a relatively small proportion of the cross-biome variation in multiple ecosystem properties. Parent material, climate, vegetation and topography predict, collectively, 24 times more variation in ecosystem properties than soil age alone. Soil age is an important local-scale ecosystem driver; however, environmental context, rather than soil age, determines the rates and trajectories of ecosystem development in structure and function across biomes. Our work provides insights into the natural history of terrestrial ecosystems. We propose that, regardless of soil age, changes in the environmental context, such as those associated with global climatic and land-use changes, will have important long-term impacts on the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems across biomes.Arctic cyclones, as a prevalent feature in the coupled dynamics of the Arctic climate system, have large impacts on the atmospheric transport of heat and moisture and deformation and drifting of sea ice. Previous studies based on historical and future simulations with climate models suggest that Arctic cyclogenesis is affected by the Arctic amplification of global warming, for instance, a growing land-sea thermal contrast. We thus hypothesize that biogeophysical feedbacks (BF) over the land, here mainly referring to the albedo-induced warming in spring and evaporative cooling in summer, may have the potential to significantly change cyclone activity in the Arctic. Based on a regional Earth system model (RCA-GUESS) which couples a dynamic vegetation model and a regional atmospheric model and an algorithm of cyclone detection and tracking, this study assesses for the first time the impacts of BF on the characteristics of Arctic cyclones under three IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways scenarios (i.e. RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Our analysis focuses on the spring- and summer time periods, since previous studies showed BF are the most pronounced in these seasons. We find that BF induced by changes in surface heat fluxes lead to changes in land-sea thermal contrast and atmospheric stability. This, in turn, noticeably changes the atmospheric baroclinicity and, thus, leads to a change of cyclone activity in the Arctic, in particular to the increase of cyclone frequency over the Arctic Ocean in spring. This study highlights the importance of accounting for BF in the prediction of Arctic cyclones and the role of circulation in the Arctic regional Earth system.

", "keywords": ["Arctic climate change", "vegetation dynamics", "Science", "Physics", "QC1-999", "biogeophysical feedbacks", "Q", "15. Life on land", "RCA-GUESS", "Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering", "01 natural sciences", "Environmental sciences", "13. Climate action", "Arctic cyclones", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "GE1-350", "TD1-1066", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0566"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Environmental%20Research%20Letters", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1088/1748-9326/ac0566", "name": "item", "description": "10.1088/1748-9326/ac0566", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0566"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2021-06-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/s41559-017-0259-7", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:23Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2017-08-06", "title": "Palaeoclimate explains a unique proportion of the global variation in soil bacterial communities", "description": "The legacy impacts of past climates on the current distribution of soil microbial communities are largely unknown. Here, we use data from more than 1,000 sites from five separate global and regional datasets to identify the importance of palaeoclimatic conditions (Last Glacial Maximum and mid-Holocene) in shaping the current structure of soil bacterial communities in natural and agricultural soils. We show that palaeoclimate explains more of the variation in the richness and composition of bacterial communities than current climate. Moreover, palaeoclimate accounts for a unique fraction of this variation that cannot be predicted from geographical location, current climate, soil properties or plant diversity. Climatic legacies (temperature and precipitation anomalies from the present to ~20\u2009kyr ago) probably shape soil bacterial communities both directly and indirectly through shifts in soil properties and plant communities. The ability to predict the distribution of soil bacteria from either palaeoclimate or current climate declines greatly in agricultural soils, highlighting the fact that anthropogenic activities have a strong influence on soil bacterial diversity. We illustrate how climatic legacies can help to explain the current distribution of soil bacteria in natural ecosystems and advocate that climatic legacies should be considered when predicting microbial responses to climate change.", "keywords": ["0301 basic medicine", "2. Zero hunger", "0303 health sciences", "Bacteria", "Climate Change", "Microbiota", "Agriculture", "910", "15. Life on land", "soil microbial ecology", "climatic changes", "03 medical and health sciences", "13. Climate action", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "soils", "Soil Microbiology", "palaeoclimatology", "Paleoclimate explains a unique proportion of the global variation in soil bacterial communities"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0259-7.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0259-7"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature%20Ecology%20%26amp%3B%20Evolution", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1038/s41559-017-0259-7", "name": "item", "description": "10.1038/s41559-017-0259-7", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1038/s41559-017-0259-7"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2017-08-07T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/s41559-017-0325-1", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:23Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2017-09-29", "title": "Diversity-dependent temporal divergence of ecosystem functioning in experimental ecosystems", "description": "The effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning generally increase over time, but the underlying processes remain unclear. Using 26 long-term grassland and forest experimental ecosystems, we demonstrate that biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships strengthen mainly by greater increases in functioning in high-diversity communities in grasslands and forests. In grasslands, biodiversity effects also strengthen due to decreases in functioning in low-diversity communities. Contrasting trends across grasslands are associated with differences in soil characteristics.", "keywords": ["0106 biological sciences", "570", "grassland ecology", "Ecology and Evolutionary Biology", "Plant Sciences", "577", "soil biodiversity", "Biodiversity", "Forests", "15. Life on land", "Grassland", "01 natural sciences", "Article", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Life Science", "ddc:570", "forest ecology", "Forest Sciences", "Institut f\u00fcr Biochemie und Biologie", "Ecosystem", "biodiversity", "ecosystem health"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0325-1.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0325-1"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature%20Ecology%20%26amp%3B%20Evolution", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1038/s41559-017-0325-1", "name": "item", "description": "10.1038/s41559-017-0325-1", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1038/s41559-017-0325-1"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2017-10-02T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/s41559-019-1084-y", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:24Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2020-02-03", "title": "Multiple elements of soil biodiversity drive ecosystem functions across biomes", "description": "The role of soil biodiversity in regulating multiple ecosystem functions is poorly understood, limiting our ability to predict how soil biodiversity loss might affect human wellbeing and ecosystem sustainability. Here, combining a global observational study with an experimental microcosm study, we provide evidence that soil biodiversity (bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) is significantly and positively associated with multiple ecosystem functions. These functions include nutrient cycling, decomposition, plant production, and reduced potential for pathogenicity and belowground biological warfare. Our findings also reveal the context dependency of such relationships and the importance of the connectedness, biodiversity and nature of the globally distributed dominant phylotypes within the soil network in maintaining multiple functions. Moreover, our results suggest that the positive association between plant diversity and multifunctionality across biomes is indirectly driven by soil biodiversity. Together, our results provide insights into the importance of soil biodiversity for maintaining soil functionality locally and across biomes, as well as providing strong support for the inclusion of soil biodiversity in conservation and management programmes.", "keywords": ["0301 basic medicine", "NETWORK ANALYSIS", "Life on Land", "STERILIZATION METHODS", "biotic communities", "CARBON", "Soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Humans", "soils", "Ecosystem", "Soil Microbiology", "biodiversity", "2. Zero hunger", "0303 health sciences", "SEQUENCES", "Fungi", "Biodiversity", "15. Life on land", "COMMUNITY", "13. Climate action", "BACTERIA", "MULTIFUNCTIONALITY", "ecosystems", "MICROBIAL DIVERSITY"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://escholarship.org/content/qt1938c590/qt1938c590.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1084-y"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature%20Ecology%20%26amp%3B%20Evolution", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1038/s41559-019-1084-y", "name": "item", "description": "10.1038/s41559-019-1084-y", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1038/s41559-019-1084-y"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2020-02-03T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/s41559-022-01756-5", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:24Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2022-05-09", "title": "Phylotype diversity within soil fungal functional groups drives ecosystem stability", "description": "Soil fungi are fundamental to plant productivity, yet their influence on the temporal stability of global terrestrial ecosystems, and their capacity to buffer plant productivity against extreme drought events, remain uncertain. Here we combined three independent global field surveys of soil fungi with a satellite-derived temporal assessment of plant productivity, and report that phylotype richness within particular fungal functional groups drives the stability of terrestrial ecosystems. The richness of fungal decomposers was consistently and positively associated with ecosystem stability worldwide, while the opposite pattern was found for the richness of fungal plant pathogens, particularly in grasslands. We further demonstrated that the richness of soil decomposers was consistently positively linked with higher resistance of plant productivity in response to extreme drought events, while that of fungal plant pathogens showed a general negative relationship with plant productivity resilience/resistance patterns. Together, our work provides evidence supporting the critical role of soil fungal diversity to secure stable plant production over time in global ecosystems, and to buffer against extreme climate events.", "keywords": ["0301 basic medicine", "Evolution", "Resistance", "580 Plants (Botany)", "Soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "10126 Department of Plant and Microbial Biology", "Behavior and Systematics", "Soil fungal", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "10211 Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center", "Phylotype diversity", "Ecosystem", "Soil Microbiology", "Productivity", "2. Zero hunger", "0303 health sciences", "Ecology", "Biodiversity", "Ecolog\u00eda", "Plants", "15. Life on land", "Protect", " restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems", " sustainably manage forests", " combat\u00a0desertification", " and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss", "Droughts", "1105 Ecology", " Evolution", " Behavior and Systematics", "13. Climate action", "Ecosystem stability", "http://metadata.un.org/sdg/15", "2303 Ecology"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01756-5.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01756-5"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature%20Ecology%20%26amp%3B%20Evolution", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1038/s41559-022-01756-5", "name": "item", "description": "10.1038/s41559-022-01756-5", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1038/s41559-022-01756-5"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2022-05-09T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/s41559-023-02071-3", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:24Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2023-05-11", "title": "Water availability creates global thresholds in multidimensional soil biodiversity and functions", "description": "Soils support an immense portion of Earth's biodiversity and maintain multiple ecosystem functions which are essential for human well-being. Environmental thresholds are known to govern global vegetation patterns, but it is still unknown whether they can be used to predict the distribution of soil organisms and functions across global biomes. Using a global field survey of 383 sites across contrasting climatic and vegetation conditions, here we showed that soil biodiversity and functions exhibited pervasive nonlinear patterns worldwide and are mainly governed by water availability (precipitation and potential evapotranspiration). Changes in water availability resulted in drastic shifts in soil biodiversity (bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) and soil functions including plant-microbe interactions, plant productivity, soil biogeochemical cycles and soil carbon sequestration. Our findings highlight that crossing specific water availability thresholds can have critical consequences for the provision of essential ecosystem services needed to sustain our planet.", "keywords": ["2. Zero hunger", "Ecolog\u00eda (Biolog\u00eda)", "2505.01 Biogeograf\u00eda", "Medio ambiente natural", "Water availability", "2417.13 Ecolog\u00eda Vegetal", "2417.90 Fijaci\u00f3n y Movilizaci\u00f3n Biol\u00f3gica de Nutrientes", "Water", "Edafolog\u00eda (Biolog\u00eda)", "Biodiversity", "15. Life on land", "Soil functions", "574", "Soil biodiversity", "Invertebrates", "6. Clean water", "631.4", "Soil", "13. Climate action", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Animals", "Humans", "Thresholds", "502.5", "Ecosystem"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02071-3"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature%20Ecology%20%26amp%3B%20Evolution", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1038/s41559-023-02071-3", "name": "item", "description": "10.1038/s41559-023-02071-3", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1038/s41559-023-02071-3"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2023-05-11T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/s41586-022-05292-x", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:25Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2022-10-12", "title": "Global hotspots for soil nature conservation", "description": "Soils are the foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems1. However, unlike for plants and animals, a global assessment of hotspots for soil nature conservation is still lacking2. This hampers our ability to establish nature\u00a0conservation priorities for the multiple dimensions that support the soil system: from soil biodiversity to ecosystem services. Here, to identify global hotspots for soil nature conservation, we performed a global field survey that includes observations of biodiversity (archaea, bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) and functions (critical for six ecosystem services) in 615 composite samples of topsoil from a standardized survey in all continents. We found that each of the different ecological dimensions of soils-that is, species richness (alpha diversity, measured as amplicon sequence variants), community dissimilarity and ecosystem services-peaked in contrasting regions of the planet, and were associated with different environmental factors. Temperate ecosystems showed the highest species richness, whereas community dissimilarity peaked in the tropics, and colder high-latitudinal ecosystems were identified as hotspots of ecosystem services. These findings highlight the complexities that are involved in simultaneously protecting multiple ecological dimensions of soil. We further show that most of these hotspots are not adequately covered by protected areas (more than 70%), and are vulnerable in the context of several scenarios of global change. Our global estimation of priorities for soil nature conservation highlights the importance of accounting for the multidimensionality of soil biodiversity and ecosystem services to conserve soils for future generations.", "keywords": ["0301 basic medicine", "2. Zero hunger", "Conservation of Natural Resources", "0303 health sciences", "Geographic Mapping", "Biodiversity", "15. Life on land", "Invertebrates", "Archaea", "Soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "13. Climate action", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Animals", "14. Life underwater", "Soil Microbiology"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05292-x.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05292-x"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1038/s41586-022-05292-x", "name": "item", "description": "10.1038/s41586-022-05292-x", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1038/s41586-022-05292-x"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2022-10-12T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1038/s41598-019-43305-4", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:26Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-05-03", "title": "Soil amendments with ethylene precursor alleviate negative impacts of salinity on soil microbial properties and productivity", "description": "Abstract

Some microbes enhance stress tolerance in plants by minimizing plant ethylene levels via degradation of its immediate precursor, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC), in the rhizosphere. In return, ACC is used by these microbes as a source of nitrogen. This mutualistic relationship between plants and microbes may be used to promote soil properties in stressful environments. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that amendments of ACC in soils reshape the structure of soil microbiome and alleviate the negative impacts of salinity on soil properties. We treated non-saline and artificially-developed saline soils with ACC in different concentrations for 14 days. The structure of soil microbiome, soil microbial properties and productivity were examined. Our results revealed that microbial composition of bacteria, archaea and fungi in saline soils was affected by ACC amendments; whereas community composition in non-saline soils was not affected. The amendments of ACC could not fully counteract the negative effects of salinity on soil microbial activities and productivity, but increased the abundance of ACC deaminase-encoding gene (acdS), enhanced soil microbial respiration, enzymatic activity, nitrogen and carbon cycling potentials and Arabidopsis biomass in saline soils. Collectively, our study indicates that ACC amendments in soils could efficiently ameliorate salinity impacts on soil properties and plant biomass production.The factors controlling the spatial variability of soil biodiversity remain largely undetermined. We conducted a global field survey to evaluate how and why the within-site spatial variability of soil biodiversity (i.e. richness and community composition) changes across global biomes with contrasting soil ages, climates and vegetation types. We found that the spatial variability of bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates is positively correlated across ecosystems. We also show that the spatial variability of soil biodiversity is mainly controlled by changes in vegetation structure driven by soil age and aridity. Areas with high plant cover, but low spatial heterogeneity, were associated with low levels of spatial variability in soil biodiversity. Further, our work advances the existence of significant, undescribed links between the spatial variability of soil biodiversity and key ecosystem functions. Taken together, our findings indicate that reductions in plant cover (e.g., via desertification, increases in aridity, or deforestation), are likely to increase the spatial variability of multiple soil organisms and that such changes are likely to negatively impact ecosystem functioning across global biomes.Greenspaces are important for sustaining healthy urban environments and their human populations. Yet their capacity to support multiple ecosystem services simultaneously (multiservices) compared with nearby natural ecosystems remains virtually unknown. We conducted a global field survey in 56 urban areas to investigate the influence of urban greenspaces on 23 soil and plant attributes and compared them with nearby natural environments. We show that, in general, urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil multiservices, with only six of 23 attributes (available phosphorus, water holding capacity, water respiration, plant cover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and arachnid richness) significantly greater in greenspaces, and one (available ammonium) greater in natural areas. Further analyses showed that, although natural areas and urban greenspaces delivered a similar number of services at low (>25% threshold) and moderate (>50%) levels of functioning, natural systems supported significantly more functions at high (>75%) levels of functioning. Management practices (mowing) played an important role in explaining urban ecosystem services, but there were no effects of fertilisation or irrigation. Some services declined with increasing site size, for both greenspaces and natural areas. Our work highlights the fact that urban greenspaces are more similar to natural environments than previously reported and underscores the importance of managing urban greenspaces not only for their social and recreational values, but for supporting multiple ecosystem services on which soils and human well-being depends.Forest soils contain a large amount of organic carbon and contribute to terrestrial carbon sequestration. However, we still have a poor understanding of what nutrients limit soil microbial metabolism that drives soil carbon release across the range of boreal to tropical forests. Here we used ecoenzymatic stoichiometry methods to investigate the patterns of microbial nutrient limitations within soil profiles (organic, eluvial and parent material horizons) across 181 forest sites throughout China. Results show that, in 80% of these forests, soil microbes were limited by phosphorus availability. Microbial phosphorus limitation increased with soil depth and from boreal to tropical forests as ecosystems become wetter, warmer, more productive, and is affected by anthropogenic nitrogen deposition. We also observed an unexpected shift in the latitudinal pattern of microbial phosphorus limitation with the lowest phosphorus limitation in the warm temperate zone (41-42\uffc2\uffb0N). Our study highlights the importance of soil phosphorus limitation to restoring forests and predicting their carbon sinks.Interactions between soil organic matter and minerals largely govern the carbon sequestration capacity of soils. Yet, variations in the proportions of free light (unprotected) and mineral-associated (protected) carbon as soil develops in contrasting ecosystems are poorly constrained. Here, we studied 16 long-term chronosequences from six continents and found that the ecosystem type is more important than soil age (centuries to millennia) in explaining the proportion of unprotected and mineral-associated carbon fractions in surface soils across global biomes. Soil carbon pools in highly productive tropical and temperate forests were dominated by the unprotected carbon fraction and were highly vulnerable to reductions in ecosystem productivity and warming. Conversely, soil carbon in low productivity, drier and colder ecosystems was dominated by mineral-protected carbon, and was less responsive to warming. Our findings emphasize the importance of conserving ecosystem productivity to protect carbon stored in surface soils.

\uffe2\uff80\uff82Advances in dynamic ecosystem modelling have made a number of different approaches to vegetation dynamics possible. Here we compare two models representing contrasting degrees of abstraction of the processes governing dynamics in real vegetation.

\uffe2\uff80\uff82Model (a) (GUESS) simulates explicitly growth and competition among individual plants. Differences in crown structure (height, depth, area and LAI) influence relative light uptake by neighbours. Assimilated carbon is allocated individually by each plant to its leaf, fine root and sapwood tissues. Carbon allocation and turnover of sapwood to heartwood in turn govern height and diameter growth.

\uffe2\uff80\uff82Model (b) (LPJ) incorporates a \uffe2\uff80\uff98dynamic global vegetation model\uffe2\uff80\uff99 (DGVM) architecture, simulating growth of populations of plant functional types (PFTs) over a grid cell, integrating individual\uffe2\uff80\uff90level processes over the proportional area (foliar projective cover, FPC) occupied by each PFT. Individual plants are not simulated, but are replaced by explicit parameterizations of their growth and interactions.

\uffe2\uff80\uff82The models are identical in their representation of core physiological and biogeochemical processes. Both also use the same set of PFTs, corresponding to the major woody plant groups in Europe, plus a grass type.

\uffe2\uff80\uff82When applied at a range of locations, broadly spanning climatic variation within Europe, both models successfully predicted PFT composition and succession within modern natural vegetation. However, the individual\uffe2\uff80\uff90based model performed better in areas where deciduous and evergreen types coincide, and in areas subject to pronounced seasonal water deficits, which would tend to favour grasses over drought\uffe2\uff80\uff90intolerant trees.

\uffe2\uff80\uff82Differences in model performance could be traced to their treatment of individual\uffe2\uff80\uff90level processes, in particular light competition and stress\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced mortality.

\uffe2\uff80\uff82Our results suggest that an explicit individual\uffe2\uff80\uff90based approach to vegetation dynamics may be an advantage in modelling of ecosystem structure and function at the resolution required for regional\uffe2\uff80\uff90 to continental\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale studies.

", "keywords": ["580", "0106 biological sciences", "570", "plants", "0207 environmental engineering", "500", "02 engineering and technology", "15. Life on land", "mortality", "01 natural sciences", "6. Clean water", "13. Climate action", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "ecosystems", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1466-822x.2001.t01-1-00256.x"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Ecology%20and%20Biogeography", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1046/j.1466-822x.2001.t01-1-00256.x", "name": "item", "description": "10.1046/j.1466-822x.2001.t01-1-00256.x", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1046/j.1466-822x.2001.t01-1-00256.x"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2001-11-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1073/pnas.1217382110", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:47Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2013-04-02", "title": "Plant Diversity Effects On Soil Food Webs Are Stronger Than Those Of Elevated Co2 And N Deposition In A Long-Term Grassland Experiment", "description": "

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\uffe2\uff80\uff94specifically plant species richness, atmospheric CO 2 , and N deposition\uffe2\uff80\uff94in 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\uffe2\uff80\uff99s sandy, organic matter\uffe2\uff80\uff93poor 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.

", "keywords": ["580", "2. Zero hunger", "0301 basic medicine", "Food Chain", "Nitrogen", "Climate Change", "Minnesota", "Biodiversity", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "Carbon Dioxide", "15. Life on land", "Poaceae", "Soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "13. Climate action", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Linear Models", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries", "Biomass"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1217382110"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Proceedings%20of%20the%20National%20Academy%20of%20Sciences", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1073/pnas.1217382110", "name": "item", "description": "10.1073/pnas.1217382110", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1073/pnas.1217382110"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2013-04-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1073/pnas.1006463107", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:46Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2010-10-26", "title": "Co2 Enhancement Of Forest Productivity Constrained By Limited Nitrogen Availability", "description": "

Stimulation of terrestrial plant production by rising CO 2 concentration is projected to reduce the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO 2 emissions. Coupled climate\uffe2\uff80\uff93carbon cycle models are sensitive to this negative feedback on atmospheric CO 2 , but model projections are uncertain because of the expectation that feedbacks through the nitrogen (N) cycle will reduce this so-called CO 2 fertilization effect. We assessed whether N limitation caused a reduced stimulation of net primary productivity (NPP) by elevated atmospheric CO 2 concentration over 11 y in a free-air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) experiment in a deciduous Liquidambar styraciflua (sweetgum) forest stand in Tennessee. During the first 6 y of the experiment, NPP was significantly enhanced in forest plots exposed to 550 ppm CO 2 compared with NPP in plots in current ambient CO 2 , and this was a consistent and sustained response. However, the enhancement of NPP under elevated CO 2 declined from 24% in 2001\uffe2\uff80\uff932003 to 9% in 2008. Global analyses that assume a sustained CO 2 fertilization effect are no longer supported by this FACE experiment. N budget analysis supports the premise that N availability was limiting to tree growth and declining over time \uffe2\uff80\uff94an expected consequence of stand development, which was exacerbated by elevated CO 2 . Leaf- and stand-level observations provide mechanistic evidence that declining N availability constrained the tree response to elevated CO 2 ; these observations are consistent with stand-level model projections. This FACE experiment provides strong rationale and process understanding for incorporating N limitation and N feedback effects in ecosystem and global models used in climate change assessments.

", "keywords": ["580", "0106 biological sciences", "Nitrogen", "carbon dioxide", "Carbon Dioxide", "15. Life on land", "Tennessee", "01 natural sciences", "nitrogen", "climatic changes", "Trees", "forests and forestry", "13. Climate action", "Fertilization", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Ecosystem", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1006463107"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Proceedings%20of%20the%20National%20Academy%20of%20Sciences", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1073/pnas.1006463107", "name": "item", "description": "10.1073/pnas.1006463107", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1073/pnas.1006463107"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2010-10-25T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1073/pnas.1807354116", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:47Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-03-09", "title": "Diversifying livestock promotes multidiversity and multifunctionality in managed grasslands", "description": "

Increasing plant diversity can increase ecosystem functioning, stability, and services in both natural and managed grasslands, but the effects of herbivore diversity, and especially of livestock diversity, remain underexplored. Given that managed grazing is the most extensive land use worldwide, and that land managers can readily change livestock diversity, we experimentally tested how livestock diversification (sheep, cattle, or both) influenced multidiversity (the diversity of plants, insects, soil microbes, and nematodes) and ecosystem multifunctionality (including plant biomass production, plant leaf N and P, above-ground insect abundance, nutrient cycling, soil C stocks, water regulation, and plant\u2013microbe symbiosis) in the world\u2019s largest remaining grassland. We also considered the potential dependence of ecosystem multifunctionality on multidiversity. We found that livestock diversification substantially increased ecosystem multifunctionality by increasing multidiversity. The link between multidiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality was always stronger than the link between single diversity components and functions. Our work provides insights into the importance of multitrophic diversity to maintain multifunctionality in managed ecosystems and suggests that diversifying livestock could promote both multidiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality in an increasingly managed world.

", "keywords": ["2. Zero hunger", "0106 biological sciences", "Conservation of Natural Resources", "Livestock", "Sheep", "Biodiversity", "Biological Sciences", "15. Life on land", "Grassland", "7. Clean energy", "01 natural sciences", "13. Climate action", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Animals", "Cattle", "Animal Husbandry", "Ecosystem"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807354116"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Proceedings%20of%20the%20National%20Academy%20of%20Sciences", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1073/pnas.1807354116", "name": "item", "description": "10.1073/pnas.1807354116", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1073/pnas.1807354116"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2019-03-08T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1073/pnas.2309881120", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:19:48Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2024-01-08", "title": "Extreme drought impacts have been underestimated in grasslands and shrublands globally", "description": "

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of short-term (~1 y) drought events\u2014the most common duration of drought\u2014globally. Yet the impact of this intensification of drought on ecosystem functioning remains poorly resolved. This is due in part to the widely disparate approaches ecologists have employed to study drought, variation in the severity and duration of drought studied, and differences among ecosystems in vegetation, edaphic and climatic attributes that can mediate drought impacts. To overcome these problems and better identify the factors that modulate drought responses, we used a coordinated distributed experiment to quantify the impact of short-term drought on grassland and shrubland ecosystems. With a standardized approach, we imposed ~a single year of drought at 100 sites on six continents. Here we show that loss of a foundational ecosystem function\u2014aboveground net primary production (ANPP)\u2014was 60% greater at sites that experienced statistically extreme drought (1-in-100-y event) vs. those sites where drought was nominal (historically more common) in magnitude (35% vs. 21%, respectively). This reduction in a key carbon cycle process with a single year of extreme drought greatly exceeds previously reported losses for grasslands and shrublands. Our global experiment also revealed high variability in drought response but that relative reductions in ANPP were greater in drier ecosystems and those with fewer plant species. Overall, our results demonstrate with unprecedented rigor that the global impacts of projected increases in drought severity have been significantly underestimated and that drier and less diverse sites are likely to be most vulnerable to extreme drought.

", "keywords": ["[SDE] Environmental Sciences", "Medical Sciences", "Drought Severity", "550", "580 Plants (Botany)", "551", "Tierras de Matorral", "Medical Specialties", "Medicine and Health Sciences", "SDG 13 - Climate Action", "climate extreme | Drought-Net | International Drought Experiment | productivity", "Productividad Primaria Neta", "Net Primary Productivity", "Productivity", "2. Zero hunger", "Praderas", "Productividad", "Life Sciences", "Biological Sciences", "Grassland", "6. Clean water", "Droughts", "Grasslands", "[SDE]Environmental Sciences", "Drought-Net", "Public Health", "International Drought Experiment", "Ciclo del Carbono", "Severidad de la Sequ\u00eda", "Global Impacts", "productivity", "Climate Change", "climate extreme", "333", "Carbon Cycle", "Environmental Public Health", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Impacto Global", "Scrublands", "General", "Biology", "Ecosystem", "Experimento internacional de Sequ\u00eda", "500", "Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases", "15. Life on land", "Clima Extremo", "Climate Science", "13. Climate action", "Cambio Clim\u00e1tico", "Extreme Climate", "Climate extreme", "Klimatvetenskap"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://boris.unibe.ch/191349/1/smith-et-al-2024-extreme-drought-impacts-have-been-underestimated-in-grasslands-and-shrublands-globally.pdf"}, {"href": "https://escholarship.org/content/qt9b707158/qt9b707158.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2309881120"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Proceedings%20of%20the%20National%20Academy%20of%20Sciences", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1073/pnas.2309881120", "name": "item", "description": "10.1073/pnas.2309881120", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1073/pnas.2309881120"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2024-01-08T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1111/gcb.12418", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:20:35Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2013-10-12", "title": "Soil Microbial And Nutrient Responses To 7years Of Seasonally Altered Precipitation In A Chihuahuan Desert Grassland", "description": "Abstract

Soil microbial communities in Chihuahuan Desert grasslands generally experience highly variable spatiotemporal rainfall patterns. Changes in precipitation regimes can affect belowground ecosystem processes such as decomposition and nutrient cycling by altering soil microbial community structure and function. The objective of this study was to determine if increased seasonal precipitation frequency and magnitude over a 7\uffe2\uff80\uff90year period would generate a persistent shift in microbial community characteristics and soil nutrient availability. We supplemented natural rainfall with large events (one/winter and three/summer) to simulate increased precipitation based on climate model predictions for this region. We observed a 2\uffe2\uff80\uff90year delay in microbial responses to supplemental precipitation treatments. In years 3\uffe2\uff80\uff935, higher microbial biomass, arbuscular mycorrhizae abundance, and soil enzyme C and P acquisition activities were observed in the supplemental water plots even during extended drought periods. In years 5\uffe2\uff80\uff937, available soil P was consistently lower in the watered plots compared to control plots. Shifts in soil P corresponded to higher fungal abundances, microbial C utilization activity, and soilpH. This study demonstrated that 25% shifts in seasonal rainfall can significantly influence soil microbial and nutrient properties, which in turn may have long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term effects on nutrient cycling and plant P uptake in this desert grassland.

", "keywords": ["precipitation manipulation", "Climate Change", "Rain", "extreme climate events", "Soil", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Big Bend National Park", "Soil Microbiology", "2. Zero hunger", "Ecology", "Bacteria", "Microbiota", "Fungi", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "Biological Sciences", "15. Life on land", "Grassland", "Texas", "6. Clean water", "desert ecosystems", "13. Climate action", "soil microbial communities", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries", "Seasons", "Desert Climate", "Environmental Sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://escholarship.org/content/qt4v79d7f4/qt4v79d7f4.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12418"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/gcb.12418", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/gcb.12418", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/gcb.12418"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2014-04-04T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1111/gcb.14839", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:20:37Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-09-13", "title": "Multiple trade-offs regulate the effects of woody plant removal on biodiversity and ecosystem functions in global rangelands", "description": "Abstract

Woody plant encroachment is a major land management issue. Woody removal often aims to restore the original grassy ecosystem, but few studies have assessed the role of woody removal on ecosystem functions and biodiversity at global scales. We collected data from 140 global studies and evaluated how different woody plant removal methods affected biodiversity (plant and animal diversity) and ecosystem functions (plant production, hydrological function, soil carbon) across global rangelands. Our results indicate that the impact of removal is strongly context dependent, varying with the specific response variable, removal method, and traits of the target species. Over all treatments, woody plant removal increased grass biomass and total groundstorey diversity. Physical and chemical removal methods increased grass biomass and total groundstorey biomass (i.e., non\uffe2\uff80\uff90woody plants, including grass biomass), but burning reduced animal diversity. The impact of different treatment methods declined with time since removal, particularly for total groundstorey biomass. Removing pyramid\uffe2\uff80\uff90shaped woody plants increased total groundstorey biomass and hydrological function but reduced total groundstorey diversity. Environmental context (e.g., aridity and soil texture) indirectly controlled the effect of removal on biomass and biodiversity by influencing plant traits such as plant shape, allelopathic, or roots types. Our study demonstrates that a one\uffe2\uff80\uff90size\uffe2\uff80\uff90fits\uffe2\uff80\uff90all approach to woody plant removal is not appropriate, and that consideration of woody plant identity, removal method, and environmental context is critical for optimizing removal outcomes. Applying this knowledge is fundamental for maintaining diverse and functional rangeland ecosystems as we move toward a drier and more variable climate.

", "keywords": ["2. Zero hunger", "0106 biological sciences", "Rangeland management", "Biodiversity", "Plants", "15. Life on land", "Poaceae", "Wood", "01 natural sciences", "Encroachment", "", "Removal method", "raits", "Woody plant traits", "Shrub removal", "13. Climate action", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "Meta\u2010analysis", "Animals", "Thickening", "Biomass", "Global synthesis", "Ecosystem"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14839"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/gcb.14839", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/gcb.14839", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/gcb.14839"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2019-10-06T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1111/gcb.15277", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:20:37Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2020-07-12", "title": "Low phosphorus supply constrains plant responses to elevated CO 2 : A meta\u2010analysis", "description": "Abstract

Phosphorus (P) is an essential macro\uffe2\uff80\uff90nutrient required for plant metabolism and growth. Low P availability could potentially limit plant responses to elevated carbon dioxide (eCO2), but consensus has yet to be reached on the extent of this limitation. Here, based on data from experiments that manipulated both CO2 and P for young individuals of woody and non\uffe2\uff80\uff90woody species, we present a meta\uffe2\uff80\uff90analysis of P limitation impacts on plant growth, physiological, and morphological response to eCO2. We show that low P availability attenuated plant photosynthetic response to eCO2 by approximately one\uffe2\uff80\uff90quarter, leading to a reduced, but still positive photosynthetic response to eCO2 compared to those under high P availability. Furthermore, low P limited plant aboveground, belowground, and total biomass responses to eCO2, by 14.7%, 14.3%, and 12.4%, respectively, equivalent to an approximate halving of the eCO2 responses observed under high P availability. In comparison, low P availability did not significantly alter the eCO2\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced changes in plant tissue nutrient concentration, suggesting tissue nutrient flexibility is an important mechanism allowing biomass response to eCO2 under low P availability. Low P significantly reduced the eCO2\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced increase in leaf area by 14.3%, mirroring the aboveground biomass response, but low P did not affect the eCO2\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced increase in root length. Woody plants exhibited stronger attenuation effect of low P on aboveground biomass response to eCO2 than non\uffe2\uff80\uff90woody plants, while plants with different mycorrhizal associations showed similar responses to low P and eCO2 interaction. This meta\uffe2\uff80\uff90analysis highlights crucial data gaps in capturing plant responses to eCO2 and low P availability. Field\uffe2\uff80\uff90based experiments with longer\uffe2\uff80\uff90term exposure of both CO2 and P manipulations are critically needed to provide ecosystem\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale understanding. Taken together, our results provide a quantitative baseline to constrain model\uffe2\uff80\uff90based hypotheses of plant responses to eCO2 under P limitation, thereby improving projections of future global change impacts.

", "keywords": ["0106 biological sciences", "910", "01 natural sciences", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "soil phosphorus", "Humans", "phosphorus", "Photosynthesis", "mycorrhizae", "soils", "Ecosystem", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences", "580", "nutrient concentration", "2. Zero hunger", "plant morphology", "biomass", "plants", "carbon dioxide", "Phosphorus", "mycorrhizas", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "Carbon Dioxide", "Plants", "15. Life on land", "leaf gas exchange", "meta-analysis", "plant nutrient uptake", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/gcb.15277"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15277"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/gcb.15277", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/gcb.15277", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/gcb.15277"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2020-07-31T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1111/geb.13607", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-06-26T16:20:41Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2022-11-28", "title": "UV index and climate seasonality explain fungal community turnover in global drylands", "description": "AbstractAim

Fungi are major drivers of ecosystem functioning. Increases in aridity are known to negatively impact fungal community composition in dryland ecosystems globally; yet, much less is known on the potential influence of other environmental drivers, and whether these relationships are linear or nonlinear.

Time period

2017\uffe2\uff80\uff932021.

Location

Global.

Major taxa studied

Fungi.

Methods

We re\uffe2\uff80\uff90analysed multiple datasets from different dryland biogeographical regions, for a total of 912 samples and 1,483 taxa. We examined geographical patterns in community diversity and composition, and spatial, edaphic and climatic factors driving them.

Results

UV index, climate seasonality, and sand content were the most important environmental predictors of community shifts, showing the strongest association with the richness of putative plant pathogens and saprobes. Important nonlinear relationships existed with each of these fungal guilds, with increases in UV and temperature seasonality above 7.5 and 900 SD (standard deviation x 100 of the mean monthly temperature), respectively, being associated with an increased probability of plant pathogen and unspecified saprotroph occurrence. Conversely, these environmental parameters had a negative relationship with litter and soil saprotroph richness. Consequently, these ecological groups might be particularly sensitive to shifts in UV radiation and climate seasonality, which is likely to disturb current plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93soil dynamics in drylands.

Main conclusions

Our synthesis integrates fungal community data from drylands across the globe, allowing the investigation of fungal distribution and providing the first evidence of shifts in fungal diversity and composition of key fungal ecological groups along diverse spatial, climatic and edaphic gradients in these widely distributed ecosystems. Our findings imply that shifts in soil structure and seasonal climatic patterns induced by global change will have disproportionate consequences for the distribution of fungal groups linked to vegetation and biogeochemical cycling in drylands, with implications for plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93soil interactions in drylands.Canopy leaf area, quantified by the leaf area index (L), is a crucial driver of forest productivity, water use and energy balance. Because L responds to environmental drivers, it can represent an important feedback to climate change, but its responses to rising atmospheric [CO2] and water availability of forests have been poorly quantified. We studied canopy leaf area dynamics for 28\uffc2\uffa0months in a native evergreen Eucalyptus woodland exposed to free\uffe2\uff80\uff90air CO2 enrichment (the EucFACE experiment), in a subtropical climate where water limitation is common. We hypothesized that, because of expected stimulation of productivity and water\uffe2\uff80\uff90use efficiency, L should increase with elevated [CO2]. We estimated L from diffuse canopy transmittance, and measured monthly leaf litter production. Contrary to expectation, L did not respond to elevated [CO2]. We found that L varied between 1.10 and 2.20 across the study period. The dynamics of L showed a quick increase after heavy rainfall and a steady decrease during periods of low rainfall. Leaf litter production was correlated to changes in L, both during periods of decreasing L (when no leaf growth occurred) and during periods of increasing L (active shedding of old foliage when new leaf growth occurred). Leaf lifespan, estimated from mean L and total annual litter production, was up to 2\uffc2\uffa0months longer under elevated [CO2] (1.18 vs. 1.01\uffc2\uffa0years; P\uffc2\uffa0=\uffc2\uffa00.05). Our main finding that L was not responsive to elevated CO2 is consistent with other forest FACE studies, but contrasts with the positive response of L commonly predicted by many ecosystem models.

", "keywords": ["[SDE] Environmental Sciences", "0106 biological sciences", "Eucalyptus", "leaf area index", "Atmosphere", "Water", "drought", "Carbon Dioxide", "Forests", "15. Life on land", "phenology", "01 natural sciences", "free-air CO2 enrichment", "6. Clean water", "[SDV] Life Sciences [q-bio]", "Plant Leaves", "13. Climate action", "atmospheric carbon dioxide", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "leaves", "New South Wales", "litter production"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/gcb.13151"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13151"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/gcb.13151", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/gcb.13151", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/gcb.13151"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2016-02-09T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1093/femsec/fiad145", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:20:07Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2023-11-09", "title": "Vegetation type, not the legacy of warming, modifies the response of microbial functional genes and greenhouse gas fluxes to drought in Oro-Arctic and alpine regions", "description": "Abstract

Climate warming and summer droughts alter soil microbial activity, affecting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Arctic and alpine regions. However, the long-term effects of warming, and implications for future microbial resilience, are poorly understood. Using one alpine and three Arctic soils subjected to in situ long-term experimental warming, we simulated drought in laboratory incubations to test how microbial functional-gene abundance affects fluxes in three GHGs: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. We found that responses of functional gene abundances to drought and warming are strongly associated with vegetation type and soil carbon. Our sites ranged from a wet, forb dominated, soil carbon-rich systems to a drier, soil carbon-poor alpine site. Resilience of functional gene abundances, and in turn methane and carbon dioxide fluxes, was lower in the wetter, carbon-rich systems. However, we did not detect an effect of drought or warming on nitrous oxide fluxes. All gene\uffe2\uff80\uff93GHG relationships were modified by vegetation type, with stronger effects being observed in wetter, forb-rich soils. These results suggest that impacts of warming and drought on GHG emissions are linked to a complex set of microbial gene abundances and may be habitat-specific.Rock-dwelling microorganisms are key players in ecosystem functioning of Antarctic ice free-areas. Yet, little is known about their diversity and ecology. Here, we performed metagenomic analyses on rocks from across Antarctica comprising >75,000 viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUS). We found largely undescribed, highly diverse and spatially structured virus communities potentially influencing bacterial adaptation and biogeochemistry. This catalog lays the foundation for expanding knowledge of the virosphere in extreme environments.The response of terrestrial ecosystems to rising atmospheric CO2 concentration (Ca), particularly under nutrient\uffe2\uff80\uff90limited conditions, is a major uncertainty in Earth System models. The Eucalyptus Free\uffe2\uff80\uff90Air CO2 Enrichment (EucFACE) experiment, recently established in a nutrient\uffe2\uff80\uff90 and water\uffe2\uff80\uff90limited woodland presents a unique opportunity to address this uncertainty, but can best do so if key model uncertainties have been identified in advance. We applied seven vegetation models, which have previously been comprehensively assessed against earlier forest FACE experiments, to simulate a priori possible outcomes from EucFACE. Our goals were to provide quantitative projections against which to evaluate data as they are collected, and to identify key measurements that should be made in the experiment to allow discrimination among alternative model assumptions in a postexperiment model intercomparison. Simulated responses of annual net primary productivity (NPP) to elevated Ca ranged from 0.5 to 25% across models. The simulated reduction of NPP during a low\uffe2\uff80\uff90rainfall year also varied widely, from 24 to 70%. Key processes where assumptions caused disagreement among models included nutrient limitations to growth; feedbacks to nutrient uptake; autotrophic respiration; and the impact of low soil moisture availability on plant processes. Knowledge of the causes of variation among models is now guiding data collection in the experiment, with the expectation that the experimental data can optimally inform future model improvements.

", "keywords": ["[SDE] Environmental Sciences", "550", "[SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]", "Climate Change", "ecosystem model", "drought", "Forests", "551", "01 natural sciences", "Carbon Cycle", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "phosphorus", "Photosynthesis", "Ecosystem", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences", "580", "2. Zero hunger", "Eucalyptus", "droughts", "carbon dioxide", "Water", "Carbon Dioxide", "15. Life on land", "Eucalyptus tereticornis", "[SDV] Life Sciences [q-bio]", "13. Climate action", "[SDE]Environmental Sciences", "ecosystems"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/gcb.13268"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13268"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/gcb.13268", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/gcb.13268", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/gcb.13268"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2016-05-09T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1111/gcb.16478", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-26T16:20:38Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2022-10-28", "title": "Soils in warmer and less developed countries have less micronutrients globally", "description": "Abstract

Soil micronutrients are capital for the delivery of ecosystem functioning and food provision worldwide. Yet, despite their importance, the global biogeography and ecological drivers of soil micronutrients remain virtually unknown, limiting our capacity to anticipate abrupt unexpected changes in soil micronutrients in the face of climate change. Here, we analyzed >1300 topsoil samples to examine the global distribution of six metallic micronutrients (Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn, Co and Ni) across all continents, climates and vegetation types. We found that warmer arid and tropical ecosystems, present in the least developed countries, sustain the lowest contents of multiple soil micronutrients. We further provide evidence that temperature increases may potentially result in abrupt and simultaneous reductions in the content of multiple soil micronutrients when a temperature threshold of 12\uffe2\uff80\uff9314\uffc2\uffb0C is crossed, which may be occurring on 3% of the planet over the next century. Altogether, our findings provide fundamental understanding of the global distribution of soil micronutrients, with direct implications for the maintenance of ecosystem functioning, rangeland management and food production in the warmest and poorest regions of the planet.

The ability of soil microbial communities to withstand and recover from disturbance or stress is important for the functional stability of forest ecosystems. However, the relationship between the community responses of soil microbes and variation in tree mixtures vs functional composition remains poorly understood.

We investigated soil biochemical properties and soil microbial resistance and resilience to drought in three 4\uffe2\uff80\uff90year\uffe2\uff80\uff90old tree monocultures (Acer saccharum Marsh, Larix laricina (Duroi) K. Koch and Pinus strobus L.) and two tree species combinations (L.\uffc2\uffa0laricina/A.\uffc2\uffa0saccharum and L.\uffc2\uffa0laricina/P.\uffc2\uffa0strobus) planted in a high\uffe2\uff80\uff90density tree field experiment located in southern Quebec, Canada. The experimentally imposed drought stress consisted of maintaining soil material for 30\uffc2\uffa0days at 25% of water\uffe2\uff80\uff90holding capacity (WHC). Microbial biomass was assessed immediately after the water stress (resistance) and 15 and 30\uffc2\uffa0days following drought (resilience).

Results showed that tree communities influenced soil chemistry, soil respirometry properties and microbial resistance and resilience. We measured significant non\uffe2\uff80\uff90additive (i.e. both synergistic and antagonistic) effects of mixing tree species in some of the soil biochemical properties measured, mostly in the L.\uffc2\uffa0laricina/A.\uffc2\uffa0saccharum mixture. However, we did not find non\uffe2\uff80\uff90additive effects of tree mixtures on microbial resistance and resilience. A structural equation modelling analysis revealed that resistance and resilience were mostly modulated by direct effects of community\uffe2\uff80\uff90weighted means (CWM) of leaf litter lignin content and mineralizable N, and by indirect links from tree density and CWM of leaf litter N content via mineralizable N.

This study suggests that tree species identity surpassed species mixtures as a key driver of soil microbial resistance and resilience. We showed a trade\uffe2\uff80\uff90off between microbial resistance and resilience in soil food webs, which is consistent with ecological theory. Our results indicate that differences in functional traits between tree species may rapidly be reflected in divergent soil biochemical properties and that these differences can in turn drive soil microbial resistance and resilience to drought.

", "keywords": ["2. Zero hunger", "0106 biological sciences", "droughts", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "ecology", "15. Life on land", "ecosystems", "soil biochemistry", "01 natural sciences", "6. Clean water", "biodiversity"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.12364"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Functional%20Ecology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/1365-2435.12364", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/1365-2435.12364", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/1365-2435.12364"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2014-12-20T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1111/1365-2435.12924", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-06-26T16:20:25Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2017-06-20", "title": "Microbial richness and composition independently drive soil multifunctionality", "description": "Abstract

Soil microbes provide multiple ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling, decomposition and climate regulation. However, we lack a quantitative understanding of the relative importance of microbial richness and composition in controlling multifunctionality. This knowledge gap limits our capacity to understand the influence of biotic attributes in the provision of services and functions on which humans depend.

We used two independent approaches (i.e. experimental and observational), and applied statistical modelling to identify the role and relative importance of bacterial richness and composition in driving multifunctionality (here defined as seven measures of respiration and enzyme activities). In the observational study, we measured soil microbial communities and functions in both tree\uffe2\uff80\uff90 and bare soil\uffe2\uff80\uff90dominated microsites at 22 locations across a 1,200\uffc2\uffa0km transect in southeastern Australia. In the experimental study we used soils from two of those locations and developed gradients of bacterial diversity and composition through inoculation of sterilized soils.

Microbial richness and the relative abundance of Gammaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes were positively related to multifunctionality in both the observational and experimental approaches; however, only Bacteroidetes was consistently selected as a key predictor of multifunctionality across all experimental approaches and statistical models used here. Moreover, our results, from two different approaches, provide evidence that microbial richness and composition are both important, yet independent, drivers of multiple ecosystem functions.

Overall, our findings advance our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning relationships between microbial diversity and ecosystem functionality in terrestrial ecosystems, and further suggest that information on microbial richness and composition needs to be considered when formulating sustainable management and conservation policies, and when predicting the effects of global change on ecosystem functions.

A plain language summary is available for this article.

Human\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced disturbance has substantially influenced the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems globally. However, the extent to which multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality) recover following anthropogenic disturbance (ecosystem recovery) remains poorly understood.

We report on the first study examining the temporal dynamics in recovery of multifunctionality from 3 to 12\uffe2\uff80\uff89years after the commencement of rehabilitation following mining\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced disturbance, and relate this information to changes in biota. We examined changes in 57 biotic (plants, microbial) and functional (soil) attributes associated with biodiversity and ecosystem services at four open\uffe2\uff80\uff90cut coal mines in eastern Australia.

Increasing time since commencement of rehabilitation was associated with increases in overall multifunctionality, soil microbial abundance, plant productivity, plant structure and soil stability, but not nutrient cycling, soil carbon sequestration nor soil nutrients. However, the temporal responses of individual ecosystem properties varied widely, from strongly positive (e.g. litter cover, fine and coarse frass, seed biomass, microbial and fungal biomass) to strongly negative (groundstorey foliage cover). We also show that sites with more developed biota tended to have greater ecosystem multifunctionality. Moreover, recovery of plant litter was closely associated with recovery of most microbial components, soil integrity and soil respiration. Overall, however, rehabilitated sites still differed from reference ecosystems a decade after commencement of rehabilitation.

Synthesis and applications. The dominant role of plant and soil biota and litter cover in relation to functions associated with soil respiration, microbial function, soil integrity and C and N pools suggests that recovering biodiversity is a critically important priority in rehabilitation programs. Nonetheless, the slow recovery of most functions after a decade indicates that rehabilitation after open\uffe2\uff80\uff90cut mining is likely to protracted.