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 - 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 - Gavín-Centol, María Pilar A1 - Serrano-Carnero, Diego A1 - Montserrat, Marta A1 - Balanzategui, Iñaki A1 - Scheu, Stefan A1 - Truu, Jaak A1 - Birkhofer, Klaus A1 - Sánchez-Moreno, Sara A1 - Moya-Laraño, Jordi T1 - Drought impairs detritivore feeding activity more strongly in northern than in southern European latitudes T2 - Soil biology and biochemistry N2 - Soil detritivores play key roles in decomposition processes closely related to ecosystem services. Drought and soil organic carbon depletion due to agricultural management are detrimental to soil biodiversity, but their interactive effects on soil biota and associated processes have not been thoroughly investigated. In 2018, we used rain-out shelters to experimentally induce drought in wheat fields of contrasting levels of organic carbon in Sweden, Germany and Spain. That year Europe experienced a climatic dipole, with exceptionally severe droughts in northern latitudes. We assessed the feeding activity of soil detritivores by bait-lamina tests, and measured several abiotic and biotic soil parameters. In the peak of the dipole drought (summer) southern fields had the driest soils. Nonetheless, detritivore feeding activity responded to the experimental drought by shifting to deeper soil layers there. Low soil organic carbon (SOC) levels exacerbated the latter effect. However, in this same period, feeding activity in northern and central Europe was two orders of magnitude lower than in the south, and failed to respond to either the experimental treatment and/or SOC levels. Using mixed-effects longitudinal random forests, we detected various candidate drivers of detritivore feeding activity: soil moisture, phosphorus content, bacteria and nematodes. Different bacterial taxa were associated to detritivory in each country, but their potential influence was pervasive. Thus, our results suggest that drought had adverse effects on detritivore feeding, which were exacerbated northwards due to the climatic dipole. Increased SOC levels mitigated drought effects only in southern soils. Regional adaptation of soil biota to aridity could explain the response of detritivores in southern Europe to drought. Machine learning algorithms arise as useful tools for exploring potential drivers relating biodiversity to soil processes. Overall, future research on the effects of drought on soil biodiversity and processes will be key for tackling climate change impacts in terrestrial ecosystems. KW - Agroecosystems KW - Ecosystem functioning KW - Climatic dipole KW - Soil biota KW - Invertebrate detritivores KW - Bait-lamina test Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2024.109594 SN - 0038-0717 VL - 199 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Elsevier BV CY - Amsterdam ER -