Soil Food Web Complexity Enhances the Link Between Soil Biodiversity and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Agricultural Systems

Abstract Background: Belowground biodiversity supports multiple ecosystem functions and services that humans rely on. However, there is a dearth of studies conducted on a large spatial scale on the topic in intensely managed agricultural ecosystems. Existing studies have overlooked the fact that the functional diversity in other trophic groups within a food web could influence function of an individual in another trophic group. Here, we report significant and positive relationships between soil biodiversity (archaea, bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates) and multiple ecosystem functions (nutrient provisioning, element cycling, and reduced pathogenicity potential) in 228 agricultural fields. Results: The relationships were influenced by (I) the types of organisms with significant relationships in archaea, bacteria, and fungi and not in protists and invertebrates, and (II) the connectedness of dominant phylotypes across soil food webs, which generate different ecological clusters within soil networks to maintain multiple functions. In addition, we highlight the role of soil food web complexity, reflected by ecological networks comprising diverse organisms, which promote the multiple functions and enhance the link between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Conclusions: Overall, our results represent a significant advance in forecasting the impacts of belowground biodiversity within food webs on ecosystem functions in agricultural systems, and suggest that soil biodiversity, particularly soil food web complexity, should not be overlooked, but rather considered a key factor and integrated into policy and management activities aimed at enhancing and maintaining ecosystem productivity, stability, and sustainability under land-use intensification.

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Oribatid mites show that soil food web complexity and close aboveground-belowground linkages emerged in the early Paleozoic

Communications Biology ◽

10.1038/s42003-019-0628-7 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Ina Schaefer ◽

Tancredi Caruso

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Food Webs ◽

Higher Plants ◽

Early Paleozoic ◽

Soil Food Web ◽

Deep Time ◽

Animal Group ◽

Soil Microarthropods ◽

Early Devonian ◽

Food Web Complexity

Abstract The early evolution of ecosystems in Palaeozoic soils remains poorly understood because the fossil record is sparse, despite the preservation of soil microarthropods already from the Early Devonian (~410 Mya). The soil food web plays a key role in the functioning of ecosystems and its organisms currently express traits that have evolved over 400 my. Here, we conducted a phylogenetic trait analysis of a major soil animal group (Oribatida) to reveal the deep time story of the soil food web. We conclude that this group, central to the trophic structure of the soil food web, diversified in the early Paleozoic and resulted in functionally complex food webs by the late Devonian. The evolution of body size, form, and an astonishing trophic diversity demonstrates that the soil food web was as structured as current food webs already in the Devonian, facilitating the establishment of higher plants in the late Paleozoic.

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How anthropogenic shifts in plant community composition alter soil food webs

F1000Research ◽

10.12688/f1000research.13008.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 4 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Paul Kardol ◽

Jonathan R. De Long

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Food Webs ◽

Plant Community ◽

Plant Communities ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Plant Community Composition ◽

Soil Food Web ◽

Food Web Structure ◽

Soil Food Webs ◽

Web Structure

There are great concerns about the impacts of soil biodiversity loss on ecosystem functions and services such as nutrient cycling, food production, and carbon storage. A diverse community of soil organisms that together comprise a complex food web mediates such ecosystem functions and services. Recent advances have shed light on the key drivers of soil food web structure, but a conceptual integration is lacking. Here, we explore how human-induced changes in plant community composition influence soil food webs. We present a framework describing the mechanistic underpinnings of how shifts in plant litter and root traits and microclimatic variables impact on the diversity, structure, and function of the soil food web. We then illustrate our framework by discussing how shifts in plant communities resulting from land-use change, climatic change, and species invasions affect soil food web structure and functioning. We argue that unravelling the mechanistic links between plant community trait composition and soil food webs is essential to understanding the cascading effects of anthropogenic shifts in plant communities on ecosystem functions and services.

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Linking soil properties and nematode community composition: effects of soil management on soil food webs

Nematology ◽

10.1163/156854106778877857 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 8 (5) ◽

pp. 703-715 ◽

Cited By ~ 77

Author(s):

Sara Sánchez-Moreno ◽

Hideomi Minoshima ◽

Howard Ferris ◽

Louise E. Jackson

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Food Webs ◽

Management Practices ◽

Recovery Period ◽

Soil Management ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Cropping Pattern ◽

Continuous Cropping ◽

Soil Food Web ◽

Soil Food Webs

Abstract The purported benefits of conservation tillage and continuous cropping in agricultural systems include enhancement of soil ecosystem functions to improve nutrient availability to crops and soil C storage. Studies relating soil management to community structure allow the development of bioindicators and the assessment of the consequences of management practices on the soil food web. During one year (December 2003-December 2004), we studied the influence of continuous cropping (CC), intermittent fallow (F), standard tillage (ST) and no tillage (NT) on the nematode assemblage and the soil food web in a legume-vegetable rotation system in California. The most intensive systems included four crops during the study period. Tillage practices and cropping pattern strongly influenced nematode faunal composition, and the soil food web, at different soil depths. Management effects on nematode taxa depended on their position along the coloniser-persister (cp) scale and on their trophic roles. At the last sampling date (December 2004), Mesorhabditis and Acrobeloides were positively associated with NH+4, while Panagrolaimus and Plectus were negatively correlated with certain phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA). Microbial-feeders were in general associated with both bacterial and fungal PLFA, microbial biomass C (MBC) by chloroform fumigation-extraction, total C and N, NH+4 and NO−3, and were most abundant in the surface soil of the NTCC treatment. Fungal-feeders were more closely related to PLFA markers of fungi than to ergosterol, a purported fungal sterol. Discolaimus, Prionchulus, Mylonchulus and Aporcelaimidae, in contrast, were associated with intermittent fallow and deeper soil layers. The organisms in the higher levels of the soil food web did not respond to the continuous input of C in the soil and a long recovery period may be required for appropriate taxa to be reintroduced and to increase. At the end of the experiment, each treatment supported quite different nematode assemblages and soil food webs.

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Mesoscale variations in the assemblage structure and trophodynamics of mesozooplankton communities of the Adriatic basin (Mediterranean Sea)

10.5194/bg-2021-240 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Emanuela Fanelli ◽

Samuele Menicucci ◽

Sara Malavolti ◽

Andrea De Felice ◽

Iole Leonori

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Food Webs ◽

Mediterranean Sea ◽

Environmental Variables ◽

Complex Structure ◽

Assemblage Structure ◽

Trophic Levels ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Food Web Structure ◽

Adriatic Basin

Abstract. Zooplankton are critical to the functioning of ocean food webs because of their utter abundance and vital ecosystem roles. Zooplankton communities are highly diverse and thus perform a variety of ecosystem functions, thus changes in their community or food web structure may provide evidence of ecosystem alteration. Assemblage structure and trophodynamics of mesozooplantkon communities were examined across the Adriatic basin, the northernmost and most productive basin of the Mediterranean Sea. Samples were collected in June–July 2019 along coast-offshore transects covering the whole western Adriatic side, consistently environmental variables were also recorded. Results showed a clear separation between samples from the northern-central Adriatic and the southern ones, with a further segregation, although less clear, of inshore vs. off-shore stations, the latter mostly dominated in the central and southern stations by gelatinous plankton. Such patterns were mainly driven by chlorophyll-a concentration (as a proxy of primary production) for northern-central stations, i.e. closer to the Po river input, and by temperature and salinity, for southern ones, with the DistLM model explaining 46 % of total variance. The analysis of stable isotopes of nitrogen and carbon allowed to identify a complex food web characterized by 3 trophic levels from herbivores to carnivores, passing through the mixed feeding behavior of omnivores, shifting from phytoplankton/detritus ingestion to microzooplankton. Trophic structure also spatially varied according to sub-area, with the northern-central sub-areas differing from each other and from the southern stations. Our results highlighted the importance of environmental variables as drivers of zooplanktonic communities and the complex structure of their food webs. Disentangling and considering such complexity is crucial to generate realistic predictions on the functioning of aquatic ecosystems, especially in high productive and, at the same time, overexploited area such as the Adriatic Sea.

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On the centrality and uniqueness of species from the network perspective

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2011.1167 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 570-573 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Shu-Mei Lai ◽

Wei-Chung Liu ◽

Ferenc Jordán

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Food Webs ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Prince William Sound ◽

Important Species ◽

Network Position ◽

Central Node ◽

Species Importance

Identifying important species for maintaining ecosystem functions is a challenge in ecology. Since species are components of food webs, one way to conceptualize and quantify species importance is from a network perspective. The importance of a species can be quantified by measuring the centrality of its position in a food web, because a central node may have greater influence on others in the network. A species may also be important because it has a unique network position, such that its loss cannot be easily compensated. Therefore, for a food web to be robust, we hypothesize that central species must be functionally redundant in terms of their network position. In this paper, we test our hypothesis by analysing the Prince William Sound ecosystem. We found that species centrality and uniqueness are negatively correlated, and such an observation is also carried over to other food webs.

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Anti-predator defence and the complexity–stability relationship of food webs

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2007.0335 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 274 (1618) ◽

pp. 1617-1624 ◽

Cited By ~ 51

Author(s):

Michio Kondoh

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Food Web ◽

Food Webs ◽

Community Level ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Food Web Structure ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Stability ◽

Food Web Complexity ◽

Predator Defence

The mechanism for maintaining complex food webs has been a central issue in ecology because theory often predicts that complexity (higher the species richness, more the interactions) destabilizes food webs. Although it has been proposed that prey anti-predator defence may affect the stability of prey–predator dynamics, such studies assumed a limited and relatively simpler variation in the food-web structure. Here, using mathematical models, I report that food-web flexibility arising from prey anti-predator defence enhances community-level stability (community persistence and robustness) in more complex systems and even changes the complexity–stability relationship. The model analysis shows that adaptive predator-specific defence enhances community-level stability under a wide range of food-web complexity levels and topologies, while generalized defence does not. Furthermore, while increasing food-web complexity has minor or negative effects on community-level stability in the absence of defence adaptation, or in the presence of generalized defence, in the presence of predator-specific defence, the connectance–stability relationship may become unimodal. Increasing species richness, in contrast, always lowers community-level stability. The emergence of a positive connectance–stability relationship however necessitates food-web compartmentalization, high defence efficiency and low defence cost, suggesting that it only occurs under a restricted condition.

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Phenotypic evolution is more constrained in simpler food webs

10.1101/527416 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Matthew A. Barbour ◽

Christopher J. Greyson-Gaito ◽

Arezoo Sootodeh ◽

Brendan Locke ◽

Jordi Bascompte

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Food Webs ◽

Ecological Networks ◽

Community Context ◽

Relative Fitness ◽

Adaptive Landscape ◽

Phenotypic Traits ◽

Phenotypic Evolution ◽

Adaptive Landscapes ◽

Food Web Complexity

AbstractGlobal change is simplifying the structure of ecological networks; however, we are currently in a poor position to predict how these simplified communities will affect the evolutionary potential of remaining populations. Theory on adaptive landscapes provides a framework for predicting how selection constrains phenotypic evolution, but often treats the community context of evolving populations as a “black box”. Here, we integrate ecological networks and adaptive landscapes to examine how changes in food-web complexity shape evolutionary constraints. We conducted a field experiment that manipulated the diversity of insect parasitoids (food-web complexity) that were able to impose selection on an insect herbivore. We then measured herbivore survival as a function of three key phenotypic traits. We found that more traits were under selection in simpler vs. more complex food webs. The adaptive landscape was more neutral in complex food webs because different parasitoid species impose different selection pressures, minimizing relative fitness differences among phenotypes. Our results suggest that phenotypic evolution becomes more constrained in simplified food webs. This indicates that the simplification of ecological communities may constrain the adaptive potential of remaining populations to future environmental change. “What escapes the eye, however, is a much more insidious kind of extinction: the extinction of ecological interactions.” Janzen (1974)

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Animal soil food web complexity triggers shifts in microbial communities, including PAH degraders, but without clear effects on phenanthrene phytoremediation

10.1101/2021.12.14.472730 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sara Correa-García ◽

Vincenzo Corelli ◽

Julien Tremblay ◽

Jessica Ann Dozois ◽

Eugenie Mukula ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Microbial Communities ◽

Soil Microbial Communities ◽

Fungal Communities ◽

Soil Food Web ◽

Experimental Conditions ◽

Bacterial Phyla ◽

Soil Microbial ◽

Degradation Rates ◽

Food Web Complexity

The aim of this study was to determine whether the complexity of the animal soil food web (SFWC) is a significant factor influencing the soil microbial communities, the productivity of the willow, and the degradation rates of 100 mg kg-1 phenanthrene contamination. The SFWC treatment had eight levels: just the microbial community (BF), or the BF with nematodes (N), springtails (C), earthworms (E), CE, CN, EN, CEN. After eight weeks of growth, the height and biomass of willows were significantly affected by the SFWC, whereas the amount of phenanthrene degraded was not affected, reaching over 95% in all pots. SFWC affected the structure and the composition of the bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities, with significant effects of SFWC on the relative abundance of fungal genera such as Sphaerosporella, a known willow symbiont during phytoremediation, and bacterial phyla such as Actinobacteriota, containing many PAH degraders. These SFWC effects on microbial communities were not clearly reflected in the community structure and abundance of PAH degraders, even though some degraders related to the Actinobacteriota and the diversity of Gram-negative degraders were affected by the SFWC treatments. Overall, our results suggest that, under our experimental conditions, SFWC does not affect significantly willow phytoremediation outcomes.

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Conventional and organic soil management as divergent drivers of resident and active fractions of major soil food web constituents

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-019-49854-y ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Paula Harkes ◽

Afnan K. A. Suleiman ◽

Sven J. J. van den Elsen ◽

Johannes J. de Haan ◽

Martijn Holterman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Food Web ◽

Carbon Fixation ◽

Production Systems ◽

Soil Management ◽

Organic Soil ◽

Mineral Fertilizers ◽

Soil Food Web ◽

Soil Biodiversity ◽

Bacteria And Fungi ◽

Active Communities

Abstract Conventional agricultural production systems, typified by large inputs of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, reduce soil biodiversity and may negatively affect ecosystem services such as carbon fixation, nutrient cycling and disease suppressiveness. Organic soil management is thought to contribute to a more diverse and stable soil food web, but data detailing this effect are sparse and fragmented. We set out to map both the resident (rDNA) and the active (rRNA) fractions of bacterial, fungal, protozoan and metazoan communities under various soil management regimes in two distinct soil types with barley as the main crop. Contrasts between resident and active communities explained 22%, 14%, 21% and 25% of the variance within the bacterial, fungal, protozoan, and metazoan communities. As the active fractions of organismal groups define the actual ecological functioning of soils, our findings underline the relevance of characterizing both resident and active pools. All four major organismal groups were affected by soil management (p < 0.01), and most taxa showed both an increased presence and an enlarged activity under the organic regime. Hence, a prolonged organic soil management not only impacts the primary decomposers, bacteria and fungi, but also major representatives of the next trophic level, protists and metazoa.

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