How Soil Biota Drive Ecosystem Stability
High biodiversity aboveground tends to increase the stability of ecosystem functioning when faced with a changing environment. However, whether and how soil biota affect ecosystem stability is less clear. Here, we introduce a framework for understanding the effects of soil biota on variation in ecos...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Trends in plant science 2018-12, Vol.23 (12), p.1057-1067 |
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Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | High biodiversity aboveground tends to increase the stability of ecosystem functioning when faced with a changing environment. However, whether and how soil biota affect ecosystem stability is less clear. Here, we introduce a framework for understanding the effects of soil biota on variation in ecosystem functioning under environmental changes. We conclude that soil biota may be a neglected factor determining ecosystem stability through their direct and indirect effects on plant diversity, the net productivity of an ecosystem, and compensatory dynamics among plant species, and via altering ecosystem resistance and resilience. Furthermore, future research needs to consider that effects of soil biota on ecosystem stability will vary depending on extrinsic factors, and for a given perturbation and ecosystem function.
It is becoming increasingly clear that an increase in aboveground plant diversity enhances the temporal stability of plant community productivity via biodiversity effect. However, we know little about whether and how belowground soil biota influence ecosystem stability.
Current studies show that specific groups of soil biota and the diversity of soil biota communities in general have important roles in mediating plant community attributes, including plant diversity, productivity, community composition, and plant–plant interactions, as well as regulating plant tolerance to stress factors.
The effects of soil biota on these aspects of plant performances are potentially linked with the stability of ecosystem productivity, which can also help to understand how soil biota influence the productivity-dependent ecosystem services. |
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ISSN: | 1360-1385 1878-4372 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.tplants.2018.09.007 |