Functionally and phylogenetically diverse plant communities key to soil biota

Alexandru Milcu, Eric Allan, Christiane Roscher, Tania Jenkins, Sebastian T. Meyer, Dan Flynn, Holger Bessler, François Buscot, Christof Engels, Marlén Gubsch, Stephan Kö Nig, Annett Lipowsky, Jessy Loranger, Carsten Renker, Christoph Scherber, Bernhard Schmid, Elisa Thébault, Tesfaye Wubet, Wolfgang W. Weisser, Stefan ScheuNico Eisenhauer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

84 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent studies assessing the role of biological diversity for ecosystem functioning indicate that the diversity of functional traits and the evolutionary history of species in a community, not the number of taxonomic units, ultimately drives the biodiversity- ecosystem-function relationship. Here, we simultaneously assessed the importance of plant functional trait and phylogenetic diversity as predictors of major trophic groups of soil biota (abundance and diversity), six years from the onset of a grassland biodiversity experiment. Plant functional and phylogenetic diversity were generally better predictors of soil biota than the traditionally used species or functional group richness. Functional diversity was a reliable predictor for most biota, with the exception of soil microorganisms, which were better predicted by phylogenetic diversity. These results provide empirical support for the idea that the diversity of plant functional traits and the diversity of evolutionary lineages in a community are important for maintaining higher abundances and diversity of soil communities.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1878-1885
Number of pages8
JournalEcology
Volume94
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2013

Keywords

  • Above-belowground interactions
  • Biodiversity
  • Functional diversity
  • Functional traits
  • Jena Experiment
  • Phylogenetic diversity
  • Plant species richness
  • Soil fauna

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