{"type": "FeatureCollection", "features": [{"id": "10.1002/ecy.2199", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-25T16:13:54Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2018-02-27", "title": "Temperature and aridity regulate spatial variability of soil multifunctionality in drylands across the globe", "description": "Abstract

The relationship between the spatial variability of soil multifunctionality (i.e., the capacity of soils to conduct multiple functions; SVM) and major climatic drivers, such as temperature and aridity, has never been assessed globally in terrestrial ecosystems. We surveyed 236 dryland ecosystems from six continents to evaluate the relative importance of aridity and mean annual temperature, and of other abiotic (e.g., texture) and biotic (e.g., plant cover) variables as drivers of SVM, calculated as the averaged coefficient of variation for multiple soil variables linked to nutrient stocks and cycling. We found that increases in temperature and aridity were globally correlated to increases in SVM. Some of these climatic effects on SVM were direct, but others were indirectly driven through reductions in the number of vegetation patches and increases in soil sand content. The predictive capacity of our structural equation\uffc2\uffa0modelling was clearly higher for the spatial variability of N\uffe2\uff80\uff90 than for C\uffe2\uff80\uff90 and P\uffe2\uff80\uff90related soil variables. In the case of N cycling, the effects of temperature and aridity were both direct and indirect via changes in soil properties. For C and P, the effect of climate was mainly indirect via changes in plant attributes. These results suggest that future changes in climate may decouple the spatial availability of these elements for plants and microbes in dryland soils. Our findings significantly advance our understanding of the patterns and mechanisms driving SVM in drylands across the globe, which is critical for predicting changes in ecosystem functioning in response to climate change.Branching river networks are prominent features of the Earth's surface, but the mechanisms that create branching river networks patterns remain elusive. Recent studies have suggested that climate, tectonics, and lithology may control both longitudinal profiles of channel incision and the planform geometry of stream networks. Here we show, by analyzing almost 1 million river junctions and over 4.2 million groundwater wells across the contiguous United States, that stream network branching angles vary systematically with the degree to which streams lose water to, or gain water from, nearby groundwater aquifers. Streams whose surfaces lie above nearby groundwater levels, and thus are likely to be losing flow to underlying aquifers, tend to have narrower branching angles than streams that lie below nearby groundwater levels, and thus are likely to gain flow from groundwater. This systematic relationship persists across several stream orders, and across a wide range in channel gradients.Branching river networks are prominent features of the Earth's surface, but the mechanisms that create branching river networks patterns remain elusive. Recent studies have suggested that climate, tectonics, and lithology may control both longitudinal profiles of channel incision and the planform geometry of stream networks. Here we show, by analyzing almost 1 million river junctions and over 4.2 million groundwater wells across the contiguous United States, that stream network branching angles vary systematically with the degree to which streams lose water to, or gain water from, nearby groundwater aquifers. Streams whose surfaces lie above nearby groundwater levels, and thus are likely to be losing flow to underlying aquifers, tend to have narrower branching angles than streams that lie below nearby groundwater levels, and thus are likely to gain flow from groundwater. This systematic relationship persists across several stream orders, and across a wide range in channel gradients.Previous studies found that plant communities on infertile soils are relatively resistant to climatic variation due to stress tolerance adaptations. However, the species assemblies in gypsum soil habitats require further investigation. Thus, we considered the following questions. (1) Do harsher arid conditions determine the characteristics of the species that form plant assemblages? (2) Is the selection of the species that assemble in arid conditions mediated by their ability to grow on gypsum soils? (3) Is the selection of species that assemble in harsher conditions related to phylogenetically conserved functional traits? Perennial plant communities were analysed in 89 gypsum-soil sites along a 400 km climate gradient from the central to southeastern Iberian Peninsula. Each local assemblage was analysed in 30 \uffc3\uff97 30 m plots and described based on taxonomic, functional (soil plant affinity) and phylogenetic parameters. The mean maximum temperatures in the hottest month, mean annual precipitation and their interaction terms were used as surrogates for the aridity conditions in generalized linear models. In the hottest locations, the gypsophily range narrowed and the mean gypsophily increased at the community level, thereby suggesting the filtering of species and the dominance of soil specialists in the actual plant assemblies. Drier sites had higher taxonomic diversity. The species that formed the perennial communities were close in evolutionary terms at the two ends of the aridity gradient. The mean maximum temperatures in the hottest month had the main abiotic filtering effect on perennial plant communities, which was mediated by the ability of species to grow on gypsum soils, and thus gypsum specialists dominated the species assemblies in the hottest locations. In contrast, the perennial communities on gypsum soils were relatively resistant to changes in precipitation. Our findings suggest that the warmer environmental conditions predicted by global change models will favour gypsum specialists over generalists.The global spread of woody plants into grasslands is predicted to increase over the coming century. While there is general agreement regarding the anthropogenic causes of this phenomenon, its ecological consequences are less certain. We analysed how woody vegetation of differing cover affects plant diversity (richness and evenness) and the surrogates of multiple ecosystem processes (multifunctionality) in global drylands, and how these change with aridity.

Location

Two hundred and twenty\uffe2\uff80\uff90four dryland sites from all continents except Antarctica, widely differing in their environmental conditions (from arid to dry\uffe2\uff80\uff90subhumid sites) and relative woody cover (from 0 to 100%).

Methods

Using a standardized field survey, we measured the cover, richness and evenness of perennial vegetation. At each site, we measured 14 soil variables related to fertility and the build\uffe2\uff80\uff90up of nutrient pools. These variables are critical for maintaining ecosystem functioning in drylands.

Results

Species richness and ecosystem multifunctionality were strongly related to woody vegetation, with both variables peaking at a relative woody cover (RWC) of 41\uffe2\uff80\uff9360%. This relationship shifted with aridity. We observed linear positive effects of RWC in dry\uffe2\uff80\uff90subhumid sites. These positive trends shifted to hump\uffe2\uff80\uff90shaped RWC\uffe2\uff80\uff93diversity and multifunctionality relationships under semi\uffe2\uff80\uff90arid environments. Finally, hump\uffe2\uff80\uff90shaped (richness, evenness) or linear negative (multifunctionality) effects of RWC were found under the most arid conditions.

Main conclusions

Plant diversity and multifunctionality peaked at intermediate levels of woody cover, although this relationship became increasingly positive in wetter environments. This comprehensive study accounts for multiple ecosystem attributes across a range of levels of woody cover and environmental conditions. Our results help us to reconcile contrasting views of woody encroachment found in the current literature and can be used to improve predictions of the likely effects of encroachment on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

", "keywords": ["580", "0106 biological sciences", "2. Zero hunger", "arid regions", "species diversity", "vegetation dynamics", "Thicketization", "Shrub encroachment", "shrubland ecology", "Species evennes", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "Soil", "Semi-arid", "13. Climate action", "XXXXXX - Unknown", "soils", "Aridity", "Species richness"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12215"}, {"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": "10.1111/geb.12215", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/geb.12215", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/geb.12215"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2014-09-13T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1111/mec.15299", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-05-25T16:19:00Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-11-07", "title": "Climatic vulnerabilities and ecological preferences of soil invertebrates across biomes", "description": "Abstract

Unlike plants and vertebrates, the ecological preferences, and potential vulnerabilities of soil invertebrates to environmental change, remain poorly understood in terrestrial ecosystems globally. We conducted a cross\uffe2\uff80\uff90biome survey including 83 locations across six continents to advance our understanding of the ecological preferences and vulnerabilities of the diversity of dominant and functionally important soil invertebrate taxa, including nematodes, arachnids and rotifers. The diversity of invertebrates was analyzed through amplicon sequencing. Vegetation and climate drove the diversity and dominant taxa of soil invertebrates. Our results suggest that declines in forest cover and plant diversity, and reductions in plant production associated with increases in aridity, can result in reductions of the diversity of soil invertebrates in a drier and more managed world. We further developed global atlases of the diversity of these important soil invertebrates, which were cross\uffe2\uff80\uff90validated using an independent database. Our study advances the current knowledge of the ecological preferences and vulnerabilities of the diversity and presence of functionally important soil invertebrates in soils from across the globe. This information is fundamental for improving and prioritizing conservation efforts of soil genetic resources and management policies.

Recent research indicates that increased aridity linked to climate change will reduce the diversity of soil microbial communities and shift their community composition in drylands, Earth's largest biome. However, we lack both a theoretical framework and solid empirical evidence of how important biotic components from drylands, such as biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses, will regulate the responses of microbial communities to expected increases in aridity with climate change.

Here we report results from a cross\uffe2\uff80\uff90continental (North America, Europe and Australia) survey of 39 locations from arid to humid ecosystems, where we evaluated how biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses regulate the relationship between aridity and the community composition and diversity of soil bacteria and fungi in dryland ecosystems.

Increasing aridity was negatively related to the richness of fungi, and either positively or negatively related to the relative abundance of selected microbial phyla, when biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses were absent. Conversely, we found an overall lack of relationship between aridity and the relative abundance and richness of microbial communities under biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses.

Our results suggest that biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses mitigate the impact of aridity on the community composition of globally distributed microbial taxa, and the diversity of fungi. They emphasize the importance of maintaining biocrusts as a sanctuary for soil microbes in drylands.

Increasing aridity due to climate change is expected to affect multiple ecosystem structural and functional attributes in global drylands, which cover \uffe2\uff88\uffbc45% of the terrestrial globe. Berdugo et al. show that increasing aridity promotes thresholds on the structure and functioning of drylands (see the Perspective by Hirota and Oliveira). Their database includes 20 variables summarizing multiple aspects and levels of ecological organization. They found evidence for a series of abrupt ecological events occurring sequentially in three phases, culminating with a shift to low-cover ecosystems that are nutrient- and species-poor at high aridity values. They estimate that more than 20% of land surface will cross at least one of the thresholds by 2100, which can potentially lead to widespread land degradation and desertification worldwide.

Science , this issue p. 787 ; see also p. 739

Climate change and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition on drylands are greatly threatening these especially vulnerable areas. Soil biocrust-forming lichens in drylands can provide early indicators of these disturbances and play a pivotal role, as they contribute to key ecosystem services. In this study, we explored the effects of different long-term water availability regimes simulating climate changes and their interaction with N addition on the physiological response of the soil lichen Cladonia rangiferina. Three sets of this lichen were subjected to control, reduced watering, and reduced watering and N addition (40 kg NH4NO3 ha\u22121 year\u22121) treatments for 16 months. Finally, all samples were subjected to daily hydration cycles with N-enriched water at two levels (40 and 80 kg NH4NO3 ha\u22121 year\u22121) for 23 days. We found that reduced watering significantly decreased the vitality of this lichen, whereas N addition unexpectedly helped lichens subjected to reduced watering to cope with stress produced by high temperatures. We also found that long-term exposure to N addition contributed to the acclimation to higher N availability. Overall, our data suggest that the interactions between reduced watering and increased N supply and temperature have an important potential to reduce the physiological performance of this soil lichen.

", "keywords": ["0301 basic medicine", "QH301-705.5", "Synergetic effects", "soil lichens; soil biocrust; global change; climate change; biomonitoring; synergetic effects; reduced watering; aridity; drylands; Mediterranean ecosystems", "01 natural sciences", "Article", "03 medical and health sciences", "Climate change", "Reduced watering", "Biology (General)", "Global change", "global change", "Aridity", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences", "0303 health sciences", "Drylands", "15. Life on land", "synergetic effects", "soil lichens", "6. Clean water", "climate change", "13. Climate action", "biomonitoring", "Biomonitoring", "Mediterranean ecosystems", "Soil lichens", "soil biocrust", "Soil biocrust"]}, "links": [{"href": "http://www.mdpi.com/2309-608X/8/4/333/pdf"}, {"href": "https://repositorio.ulisboa.pt/bitstream/10451/52117/1/jof-08-00333-v2.pdf"}, {"href": "https://www.mdpi.com/2309-608X/8/4/333/pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10451/52117"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Journal%20of%20Fungi", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10451/52117", "name": "item", "description": "10451/52117", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10451/52117"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2022-03-23T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.3929/ethz-b-000636575", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-25T16:21:14Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2023-10-06", "title": "Groundwater's Fingerprint in Stream Network Branching Angles", "description": "Abstract

Branching river networks are prominent features of the Earth's surface, but the mechanisms that create branching river networks patterns remain elusive. Recent studies have suggested that climate, tectonics, and lithology may control both longitudinal profiles of channel incision and the planform geometry of stream networks. Here we show, by analyzing almost 1 million river junctions and over 4.2 million groundwater wells across the contiguous United States, that stream network branching angles vary systematically with the degree to which streams lose water to, or gain water from, nearby groundwater aquifers. Streams whose surfaces lie above nearby groundwater levels, and thus are likely to be losing flow to underlying aquifers, tend to have narrower branching angles than streams that lie below nearby groundwater levels, and thus are likely to gain flow from groundwater. This systematic relationship persists across several stream orders, and across a wide range in channel gradients.Pinus radiata wood blocks is measured in a rainforest site (named DRO) and savanna site (named PNW) in Queensland, Australia, following the methods described in Wijas et al., (2024),\u00a0https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14494, but with the inclusion of a 70% green shade cloth. The sites in 'pine_shade.csv' are the same sites named \u2018wet rainforest\u2019 and \u2018dry savanna\u2019 in Wijas et al. (2024) and site descriptions are also provided in Clement et al., (2021), https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.657444.\u00a0 For analyses, we processed the 'new_global_wood_decay' dataset to only include sites where termites were known to be present (102 of the 140 sites). The presence of fungus-growing termites (subfamily Macrotermitinae) was assigned to sites if sites were within the geographical distribution of fungus-growing termites, i.e. if they were in Afrotropical, Oriental, or Malagasy realms. Additionally, we checked for the presence of fugus-growing termites by reviewing published termite transect surveys at the same sites and through personal communication with researchers based at sites. Termite decomposition of deadwood was considered a two step process: first we looked at termite discovery of deadwood, wood blocks were considered discovered by termites if researchers had noted imported soil on wood blocks by termites, termite related damage to wood blocks or termite presence on wood blocks; second we looked at decay rates of wood blocks discovered by termites. Decay of undiscovered wood blocks was attributed primarily to microbial decay. Decay of discovered wood blocks includes microbial decay but is refered to as termite-driven decay. We compared termite discovery of deadwood and termite-driven decay rates in sites where fungus-growing termites were present and absent. We used R software to run linear regression models to compare differences in termite discovery and termite-driven decay rates with climatic variables (MAT, MAP and MAA) and with the presence or absence of fungus-growing termites.", "keywords": ["aridity", "Termite decay", "FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences", "Termite distribution", "Macrotermitinae", "Fungus-growing termites", "Deadwood decomposition"], "contacts": [{"organization": "Law, Stephanie J., Flores-Moreno, Habacuc, Parr, Catherine L., Adu-Bredu, Stephen, Bunney, Katherine, Cornwell, William K., Evouna Ondo, Fid\u00e8le, Powell, Jeff R., Quansah, Gabriel W., Robertson, Mark P., Zanne, Amy E., Eggleton, Paul,", "roles": ["creator"]}]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.wwpzgmssd"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.5061/dryad.wwpzgmssd", "name": "item", "description": "10.5061/dryad.wwpzgmssd", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.5061/dryad.wwpzgmssd"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2024-09-07T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.5281/zenodo.5665146", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-05-25T16:23:19Z", "type": "Dataset", "title": "Boy et al.: Gradient Studies Reveal the True Drivers of Extreme Life in the Atacama Desert.", "description": "The file contains supplementary data on correlation matrices, spatial visualizations of soil pH, clay content, electric conductivity, and soluble salts as well as tables for salt concentrations in different soil depths across four large-scale soil transects in the Atacama Desert, Chile, from the Earth Shape Project. The excel file provides the values for the measured properties. Corresponding author: Diana Boy (diana.boy@ifmb.uni-hannover.de)", "keywords": ["soil organic carbon", "hyper-arid", "aridity gradient", "transect study", "15. Life on land", "Atacama Desert"], "contacts": [{"organization": "Boy, Diana, Moeller, Ralf, Sauheitl, Leopold, Schaarschmidt, Frank, Rapp, Stefan, van den Brink, Liesbeth, Gschwendtner, Silvia, Godoy, Roberto, Matus, Francisco J., Horn, Marcus A., Guggenberger, Georg, Boy, Jens,", "roles": ["creator"]}]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5665146"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.5281/zenodo.5665146", "name": "item", "description": "10.5281/zenodo.5665146", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.5281/zenodo.5665146"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2021-11-10T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10486/714786", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-25T16:24:40Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-04-01", "title": "Aridity and reduced soil micronutrient availability in global drylands", "description": "Drylands cover more than 40% of terrestrial surface, and their global extent and socio-ecological importance will increase in the future due to the forecasted increases in aridity driven by climate change. Despite the essential role of metallic micronutrients in life chemistry and ecosystem functioning, it is virtually unknown how their bioavailability changes along aridity gradients at the global scale. Here we analysed soil total and available Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn in 143 drylands from all continents, except Antarctica, covering a broad range of aridity and soil conditions. We found that total and available micronutrient concentrations in dryland soils were low compared to averages commonly found in soils of natural and agricultural ecosystems globally. Aridity negatively affected the availability of all micronutrients evaluated, mainly indirectly by increasing soil pH and decreasing soil organic matter. Remarkably, the available Fe:Zn ratio decreased exponentially as aridity increased, pointing to stoichiometric alterations. Our findings suggest that increased aridity conditions due to climate change will limit the availability of essential micronutrients for organisms, particularly that of Fe and Zn, which together with other adverse effects (e.g., reduced water availability) may pose serious threats to key ecological processes and services, such as food production, in drylands worldwide.", "keywords": ["0301 basic medicine", "2. Zero hunger", "drylands", "03 medical and health sciences", "aridity", "13. Climate action", "micronutrients", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries", "Qu\u00edmica", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "15. Life on land"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0262-x.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10486/714786"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Nature%20Sustainability", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10486/714786", "name": "item", "description": "10486/714786", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10486/714786"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2019-04-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "1959.7/uws:63666", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-25T16:25:06Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2020-02-14", "title": "Global ecosystem thresholds driven by aridity", "description": "Thresholds of aridity

Increasing aridity due to climate change is expected to affect multiple ecosystem structural and functional attributes in global drylands, which cover \uffe2\uff88\uffbc45% of the terrestrial globe. Berdugo et al. show that increasing aridity promotes thresholds on the structure and functioning of drylands (see the Perspective by Hirota and Oliveira). Their database includes 20 variables summarizing multiple aspects and levels of ecological organization. They found evidence for a series of abrupt ecological events occurring sequentially in three phases, culminating with a shift to low-cover ecosystems that are nutrient- and species-poor at high aridity values. They estimate that more than 20% of land surface will cross at least one of the thresholds by 2100, which can potentially lead to widespread land degradation and desertification worldwide.

Science , this issue p. 787 ; see also p. 739 The relationship between the spatial variability of soil multifunctionality (i.e., the capacity of soils to conduct multiple functions; SVM) and major climatic drivers, such as temperature and aridity, has never been assessed globally in terrestrial ecosystems. We surveyed 236 dryland ecosystems from six continents to evaluate the relative importance of aridity and mean annual temperature, and of other abiotic (e.g., texture) and biotic (e.g., plant cover) variables as drivers of SVM, calculated as the averaged coefficient of variation for multiple soil variables linked to nutrient stocks and cycling. We found that increases in temperature and aridity were globally correlated to increases in SVM. Some of these climatic effects on SVM were direct, but others were indirectly driven through reductions in the number of vegetation patches and increases in soil sand content. The predictive capacity of our structural equation\uffc2\uffa0modelling was clearly higher for the spatial variability of N\uffe2\uff80\uff90 than for C\uffe2\uff80\uff90 and P\uffe2\uff80\uff90related soil variables. In the case of N cycling, the effects of temperature and aridity were both direct and indirect via changes in soil properties. For C and P, the effect of climate was mainly indirect via changes in plant attributes. These results suggest that future changes in climate may decouple the spatial availability of these elements for plants and microbes in dryland soils. Our findings significantly advance our understanding of the patterns and mechanisms driving SVM in drylands across the globe, which is critical for predicting changes in ecosystem functioning in response to climate change.Unlike plants and vertebrates, the ecological preferences, and potential vulnerabilities of soil invertebrates to environmental change, remain poorly understood in terrestrial ecosystems globally. We conducted a cross\uffe2\uff80\uff90biome survey including 83 locations across six continents to advance our understanding of the ecological preferences and vulnerabilities of the diversity of dominant and functionally important soil invertebrate taxa, including nematodes, arachnids and rotifers. The diversity of invertebrates was analyzed through amplicon sequencing. Vegetation and climate drove the diversity and dominant taxa of soil invertebrates. Our results suggest that declines in forest cover and plant diversity, and reductions in plant production associated with increases in aridity, can result in reductions of the diversity of soil invertebrates in a drier and more managed world. We further developed global atlases of the diversity of these important soil invertebrates, which were cross\uffe2\uff80\uff90validated using an independent database. Our study advances the current knowledge of the ecological preferences and vulnerabilities of the diversity and presence of functionally important soil invertebrates in soils from across the globe. This information is fundamental for improving and prioritizing conservation efforts of soil genetic resources and management policies.Branching river networks are prominent features of the Earth's surface, but the mechanisms that create branching river networks patterns remain elusive. Recent studies have suggested that climate, tectonics, and lithology may control both longitudinal profiles of channel incision and the planform geometry of stream networks. Here we show, by analyzing almost 1 million river junctions and over 4.2 million groundwater wells across the contiguous United States, that stream network branching angles vary systematically with the degree to which streams lose water to, or gain water from, nearby groundwater aquifers. Streams whose surfaces lie above nearby groundwater levels, and thus are likely to be losing flow to underlying aquifers, tend to have narrower branching angles than streams that lie below nearby groundwater levels, and thus are likely to gain flow from groundwater. This systematic relationship persists across several stream orders, and across a wide range in channel gradients.

Recent research indicates that increased aridity linked to climate change will reduce the diversity of soil microbial communities and shift their community composition in drylands, Earth's largest biome. However, we lack both a theoretical framework and solid empirical evidence of how important biotic components from drylands, such as biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses, will regulate the responses of microbial communities to expected increases in aridity with climate change.

Here we report results from a cross\uffe2\uff80\uff90continental (North America, Europe and Australia) survey of 39 locations from arid to humid ecosystems, where we evaluated how biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses regulate the relationship between aridity and the community composition and diversity of soil bacteria and fungi in dryland ecosystems.

Increasing aridity was negatively related to the richness of fungi, and either positively or negatively related to the relative abundance of selected microbial phyla, when biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses were absent. Conversely, we found an overall lack of relationship between aridity and the relative abundance and richness of microbial communities under biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses.

Our results suggest that biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90forming mosses mitigate the impact of aridity on the community composition of globally distributed microbial taxa, and the diversity of fungi. They emphasize the importance of maintaining biocrusts as a sanctuary for soil microbes in drylands.

Previous studies found that plant communities on infertile soils are relatively resistant to climatic variation due to stress tolerance adaptations. However, the species assemblies in gypsum soil habitats require further investigation. Thus, we considered the following questions. (1) Do harsher arid conditions determine the characteristics of the species that form plant assemblages? (2) Is the selection of the species that assemble in arid conditions mediated by their ability to grow on gypsum soils? (3) Is the selection of species that assemble in harsher conditions related to phylogenetically conserved functional traits? Perennial plant communities were analysed in 89 gypsum-soil sites along a 400 km climate gradient from the central to southeastern Iberian Peninsula. Each local assemblage was analysed in 30 \uffc3\uff97 30 m plots and described based on taxonomic, functional (soil plant affinity) and phylogenetic parameters. The mean maximum temperatures in the hottest month, mean annual precipitation and their interaction terms were used as surrogates for the aridity conditions in generalized linear models. In the hottest locations, the gypsophily range narrowed and the mean gypsophily increased at the community level, thereby suggesting the filtering of species and the dominance of soil specialists in the actual plant assemblies. Drier sites had higher taxonomic diversity. The species that formed the perennial communities were close in evolutionary terms at the two ends of the aridity gradient. The mean maximum temperatures in the hottest month had the main abiotic filtering effect on perennial plant communities, which was mediated by the ability of species to grow on gypsum soils, and thus gypsum specialists dominated the species assemblies in the hottest locations. In contrast, the perennial communities on gypsum soils were relatively resistant to changes in precipitation. Our findings suggest that the warmer environmental conditions predicted by global change models will favour gypsum specialists over generalists.