Summary
Agriculture is a major source of nutrient pollution, posing a threat to the earth system functioning. Factors determining the nutrient use efficiency of plant-soil systems need to be identified to develop strategies to reduce nutrient losses while ensuring crop productivity. The potential of soil biota to tighten nutrient cycles by improving plant nutrition and reducing soil nutrient losses is still poorly understood. We manipulated soil biota communities in outdoor lysimeters, planted maize, continuously collected leachates, and measured N<sub>2</sub> O- and N<sub>2</sub> -gas emissions after a fertilization pulse to test whether differences in soil biota communities affected nutrient recycling and N losses. Lysimeters with strongly simplified soil biota communities showed reduced crop N
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