Summary
This experimental study demonstrates that soil microbial biodiversity enhances the temporal stability of multiple ecosystem functions critical to biogeochemical cycling. The stabilising mechanism operates through asynchrony—whereby different soil microorganisms promote different functions at different times. The findings underscore the ecological importance of conserving soil microbial diversity for maintaining the ecosystem services that soils provide.
UK applicability
These findings are relevant to UK soil management and conservation policy, as they demonstrate quantitatively that soil microbial diversity loss poses measurable risks to soil function stability. However, as an experimental mesocosm study conducted under controlled conditions, field validation under UK temperate soil and climate conditions would strengthen applicability to UK farming and land management practice.
Key measures
Temporal stability of four ecosystem functions related to biogeochemical cycling; soil fungal and bacterial richness; asynchrony among microbial taxa
Outcomes reported
The study experimentally quantified how soil fungal and bacterial diversity contributes to the temporal stability of four key biogeochemical cycling functions. Microbial diversity enhanced the temporal stability of all measured ecosystem functions, with particularly strong effects in communities with >50% taxa loss.
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