Browsing by Author "Reich, Peter B."

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    The influence of soil age on ecosystem structure and function across biomes
    Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel; Reich, Peter B.; Bardgett, Richard D.; Eldridge, David J.; Lambers, Hans; Wardle, David A.; Reed, Sasha C.; Plaza, Cesar; Png, G. Kenny; Neuhauser, Sigrid; Berhe, Asmeret Asefaw; Hart, Stephen C.; Hu, Hang-Wei; He, Ji-Zheng; Bastida, Felipe; Abades, Sebastian R.; Alfaro, Fernando D.; Cutler, Nick A.; Gallardo, Antonio; Garcia-Velazquez, Laura; Hayes, Patrick E.; Hseu, Zeng-Yei; Perez, Cecilia A.; Santos, Fernanda; Siebe, Christina; Trivedi, Pankaj; Sullivan, Benjamin W.; Weber-Grullon, Luis; Williams, Mark A.; Fierer, Noah (2020-09-18)
    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. Soil age is thought to be an important driver of ecosystem development. Here, the authors perform a global survey of soil chronosequences and meta-analysis to show that, contrary to expectations, soil age is a relatively minor ecosystem driver at the biome scale once other drivers such as parent material, climate, and vegetation type are accounted for.
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    Multiple elements of soil biodiversity drive ecosystem functions across biomes
    Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel; Reich, Peter B.; Trivedi, Chanda; Eldridge, David J.; Abades, Sebastian R.; Alfaro, Fernando D.; Bastida, Felipe; Berhe, Asmeret Asefaw; Cutler, Nick A.; Gallardo, Antonio; Garcia-Velazquez, Laura; Hart, Stephen C.; Hayes, Patrick E.; He, Ji-Zheng; Hseu, Zeng-Yei; Hu, Hang-Wei; Kirchmair, Martin; Neuhauser, Sigrid; Perez, Cecilia A.; Reed, Sasha C.; Santos, Fernanda; Sullivan, Benjamin W.; Trivedi, Pankaj; Wang, Jun-Tao; Weber-Grullon, Luis; Williams, Mark A.; Singh, Brajesh K. (2020-02)
    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. Combining field data from 83 sites on five continents, together with microcosm experiments, the authors show that nutrient cycling, decomposition, plant production and other ecosystem functions are positively associated with a higher diversity of a wide range of soil organisms.