RT Journal Article
T1 Cascading effects from plants to soil microorganisms explain how plant species richness and simulated climate change affect soil multifunctionality
A1 Valencia Gómez, Enrique
A1 Gross, Nicolas
A1 Quero, José
A1 Carmona, Carlos
A1 Ochoa, Victoria
A1 Gozalo, Beatriz
A1 Delgado‐Baquerizo, Manuel
A1 Dumack, Kenneth
A1 Hamonts, Kelly
A1 Singh, Brajesh
A1 Bonkowski, Michael
A1 Maestre, Fernando
AB Despite their importance, how plant communities and soil microorganisms interact to determine the capacity of ecosystems to provide multiple functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) under climate change is poorly known. We conducted a common garden experiment using grassland species to evaluate how plant functional structure and soil microbial (bacteria and protists) diversity and abundance regulate soil multifunctionality responses to joint changes in plant species richness (one, three and six species) and simulated climate change (3°C warming and 35% rainfall reduction). The effects of species richness and climate on soil multifunctionality were indirectly driven via changes in plant functional structure and their relationships with the abundance and diversity of soil bacteria and protists. More specifically, warming selected for the larger and most productive plant species, increasing the average size within communities and leading to reductions in functional plant diversity. These changes increased the total abundance of bacteria that, in turn, increased that of protists, ultimately promoting soil multifunctionality. Our work suggests that cascading effects between plant functional traits and the abundance of multitrophic soil organisms largely regulate the response of soil multifunctionality to simulated climate change, and ultimately provides novel experimental insights into the mechanisms underlying the effects of biodiversity and climate change on ecosystem functioning.
PB Wiley
SN 1354-1013
YR 2018
FD 2018
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/94922
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/94922
LA eng
NO Valencia, Enrique, et al. «Cascading Effects from Plants to Soil Microorganisms Explain How Plant Species Richness and Simulated Climate Change Affect Soil Multifunctionality». Global Change Biology, vol. 24, n.o 12, diciembre de 2018, pp. 5642-54. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14440.
NO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis research was funded by the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement 242658 (BIOCOM) and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BIOMOD project, Ref CGL2013-44661-R). EV is supported by the project (GACR 16-15012S) funded by the Czech Science Foundation and by the 2017 programme for attracting and retaining talent of Comunidad de Madrid (no. 2017-T2/AMB-5406). FTM acknowledges support from the European Research Council (BIODESERT project, ERC Grant agreement no. 647038). NG was supported by the AgreenSkills+ fellowship programme, which has received funding from the EU's Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No. FP7-609398 (AgreenSkills+ contract). CPC is supported by the Estonian Research Council (project MOBJD13), the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (IUT20-29) and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence EcolChange). M.D-B. acknowledges support from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 under REA grant agreement no. 702057. B.K.S. and M.D-B. work on this topic is supported by Australian Research Council (DP 170104634).
NO European Commission
NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
NO Czech Science Foundation
NO Comunidad de Madrid
NO Estonian Research Council
NO Ministry of Education and Research (Estonia)
NO Australian Research Council
DS Docta Complutense
RD 3 abr 2025