Project Details
Projekt
SP4 Soil biodiversity and functioning
Applicants
Dr. Simone Cesarz; Professor Dr. Nico Eisenhauer
Subject Area
Forestry
Ecology of Land Use
Ecology of Land Use
Term
since 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 459717468
The soil harbors an astonishing biodiversity that is essential for a multitude of ecosystem functions, such as nutrient cycling and decomposition. While environmental homogenization has been identified as a key driver threatening biodiversity above the ground, the responses of soil biodiversity and ecosystem function are less clear. This represents a major gap in the understanding of the drivers and consequences of as well as mitigation measures for biodiversity change. Among the enormous biodiversity in soil, soil microorganisms and nematodes are the most abundant and diverse taxa and are often used as bioindicators for soil health. Microorganisms are regarded as the "functional backbones" of ecosystems, while nematodes are the most abundant Metazoa on Earth. Studies from the last two decades provide evidence that the distribution of soil microorganisms and nematodes is predictable over different spatial scales. Ecological theory suggests that an increase in spatial variation due to enhanced habitat complexity combined with dissimilar communities decreases the functional redundancy at larger spatial scales and therefore increases the simultaneous provisioning of multiple ecosystem functions, i.e. ecosystem multifunctionality. Despite some first evidence that these relationships are also critical for soil communities and functioning, the hypothesized nexus of habitat complexity, soil biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning is largely understudied.The main objective of this subproject is to explore the response of α-, β-, and γ-diversity of soil organisms and ecosystem multifunctionality to Enhancement of Structural Beta Complexity (ESBC). Four complementary working packages (WPs) will investigate these relationships. ESBC is expected to increase soil ecosystem multifunctionality due to i) increased habitat complexity/heterogeneity that will increase habitat space (WP1) and thus ii) the taxonomical and functional diversity (WP1,2), which will enhance iii) multiple soil ecosystem functions (WP3). While continuing a complete time-series dataset on soil microbial properties which started in 2018, another subproject (WP4) aims to extend the spatial and temporal extent of a plethora of different soil indicators for the taxonomic and functional diversity of soil communities as well as multiple soil ecosystem functions. Extensive collaboration and data exchange with other subprojects of the Research Unit will yield unique mechanistic insights into the generality and underlying mechanisms of relationships between structural complexity, soil biodiversity, and ecosystem functions at different spatial scales.
DFG Programme
Research Units
