After-life legacy effects of enchytraeids increase the functional capability of arable soil following stress

Liu, Manqiang; Hu, Zhengkun; Yao, Junneng; Chen, Xiaoyun; Griffiths, Bryan; Hu, Feng

doi:10.1007/s00374-022-01657-6

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…These impacts typically extend across feeding relationships in the food web and can have cascading effects on the entire body [32]. Overall, the ecological functions of soil fauna include structural modifications (i.e., habitat formation and destruction) [33][34][35], soil organic carbon accumulation (such as decomposition and transformation of organic matter) [36][37][38], and plant health maintenance (i.e., growth, pathogen control, and stress resistance) [39,40]). Given that soil fauna may have different effects (e.g., positive vs. negative) on the key ecological functions of soil physical structure, organic carbon, and plant growth, an increasing number of recent studies have focused on the concept of ecosystem multifunctionality to elucidate the combined effects of soil fauna from the perspective of SMF [41].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Trophic Species Diversity Contributes to the Restoration of Soil Multifunctionality in Degraded Karst Forests through Cascading Effects

Long,

Zhou,

et al. 2024

Forests

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The biodiversity–ecosystem function (BEF) relationship is the basis for studying the restoration of degraded ecosystems, and the simultaneous assessment of multi-trophic-level biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality relationship is more conducive to unravelling the restoration mechanism of degraded ecosystems, especially for degraded forest ecosystems with harsh habitats and infertile soils such as karst. In this study, we evaluated the biodiversity and soil multifunctionality (SMF) of degraded karst forests (scrub, SB; secondary growth forests, SG; old-growth forests, OG) in the Maolan National Nature Reserve, China, using 30 sample plots. Biodiversity and soil multifunctionality (SMF) at three trophic levels (plant–soil fauna–soil microorganisms), were assessed through vegetation surveys and soil sampling. One-way ANOVA showed that SMF increased with natural restoration, but multi-trophic level biodiversity showed different trends. Pearson’s correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between plant species diversity and SMF (p < 0.001), whereas soil fauna and soil microorganisms were negatively correlated with SMF. Structural equation modeling revealed a cascading effect of the multi-trophic level on the stimulation of the SMF during restoration. Only soil microorganisms exhibited a direct driving effect on SMF (p < 0.001), whereas plants indirectly influenced soil microorganisms through soil fauna, which subsequently affected the SMF. Although we observed the negative effects of increased plant diversity on soil fauna and soil microbial diversity in terms of quantitative relationships, the increase in soil fauna species and the evenness of soil microbial function still contributed to SMF restoration. This study revealed the cascading effects of multi-trophic diversity in promoting SMF restoration and emphasized that soil microbes are key to unraveling restoration mechanisms and processes, whereas soil fauna is an important intermediate link.

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