TY - GEN A1 - Gavín‐Centol, María Pilar A1 - Serrano-Carnero, Diego A1 - Montserrat, Marta A1 - Meyer, Svenja A1 - Scheu, Stefan A1 - Kundel, Dominika A1 - Fliessbach, Andreas A1 - Truu, Jaak A1 - Birkhofer, Klaus A1 - Sánchez-Moreno, Sara A1 - Moya-Laraño, Jordi T1 - Severe drought and conventional farming affect detritivore feeding activity and its vertical distribution T2 - Basic and Applied Ecology N2 - Soil invertebrates are key to decomposition, a central ecosystem process related to soil health. In many temperate areas climate change will decrease soil water content, which strongly modulates biological activity. However, data are lacking on how shifts in rainfall patterns affect soil biota and the ecosystem processes they provide. Here, we used the bait-lamina test to experimentally assess how a severe drought event influenced detritivore feeding activity, during a wheat growing season, in soils under long-term organic or conventional farming. Additionally, biotic and abiotic soil parameters were measured. Feeding activity was reduced under extreme drought and conventional management, although no climate-management synergies were found. Vertical migrations of Collembola and Oribatida partially explained the unexpectedly higher bait consumption at shallower depths in response to drought. Exploratory mixed-effects longitudinal random forests (a novel machine learning technique) were used to explore whether the relative abundances of meso‑, microfauna and microbes of the decomposer food web, or abiotic soil parameters, affected the feeding activity of detritivores. The model including meso‑ and microfauna selected four Nematoda taxa and explained higher variance than the model with only microbiota, indicating that detritivore feeding is closely associated with nematodes but not with microbes. Additionally, the model combining fauna and microbiota explained less variance than the faunal model, suggesting that microbe-fauna synergies barely affected detritivore feeding. Moreover, soil water and mineral nitrogen contents were found to strongly determine detritivore feeding, in a positive and negative way, respectively. Hence, our results suggest that severe drought and conventional farming impair the feeding activity of soil detritivores and thus, probably, decomposition and nutrient mineralization in soils. Furthermore, machine learning algorithms arise as a powerful technique to explore the identity of potential key drivers relating biodiversity to ecosystem functioning. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2023.03.006 SN - 1439-1791 VL - 69 SP - 49 EP - 59 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Birkhofer, Klaus A1 - Fliessbach, Andreas A1 - Gavín‐Centol, María Pilar A1 - Hedlund, Katarina A1 - Ingimarsdóttir, María A1 - Bracht Jørgensen, Helene A1 - Kozjek, Katja A1 - Meyer, Svenja A1 - Montserrat, Marta A1 - Sánchez-Moreno, Sara A1 - Moya Laraño, Jordi A1 - Scheu, Stefan A1 - Serrano-Carnero, Diego A1 - Truu, Jaak A1 - Kundel, Dominika T1 - Conventional agriculture and not drought alters relationships between soil biota and functions T2 - Scientific Reports N2 - Soil biodiversity constitutes the biological pillars of ecosystem services provided by soils worldwide. Soil life is threatened by intense agricultural management and shifts in climatic conditions as two important global change drivers which are not often jointly studied under field conditions. We addressed the effects of experimental short‐term drought over the wheat growing season on soil organisms and ecosystem functions under organic and conventional farming in a Swiss long term trial. Our results suggest that activity and community metrics are suitable indicators for drought stress while microbial communities primarily responded to agricultural practices. Importantly, we found a significant loss of multiple pairwise positive and negative relationships between soil biota and process‐related variables in response to conventional farming, but not in response to experimental drought. These results suggest a considerable weakening of the contribution of soil biota to ecosystem functions under long‐term conventional agriculture. Independent of the farming system, experimental and seasonal (ambient) drought conditions directly affected soil biota and activity. A higher soil water content during early and intermediate stages of the growing season and a high number of significant relationships between soil biota to ecosystem functions suggest that organic farming provides a buffer against drought effects. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03276-x SN - 2045-2322 IS - 11 ER -