Global decomposition experiment shows soil animal impacts on decomposition are climate‐dependent

作者：Diana H. Wall, Mark A. Bradford, Mark G. St. John, J. A. Trofymow, Valerie M. Behan‐Pelletier, David E. Bignell, J. Mark Dangerfield, William J. Parton, Josef Rusek, Winfried Voigt, Volkmar Wolters, HOLLEY ZADEH GARDEL, F.O. Ayuke, R. Bashford, OLGA I. BELJAKOVA, Patrick J. Bohlen, Alain Brauman, Stephen P. Flemming, Joh R. Henschel, Dan L. Johnson, T. Hefin Jones, Marcela Kovařová, J. M. Kranabetter, Les Kutny, Kuo-Chuan Lin, Mohamed Maryati, Dominique Massé, A. D. Pokarzhevskii, Homathevi Rahman, Millôr Godoy Sabará, J.-A. Salamon, M. J. Swift, A. Varela, Heraldo L. Vasconcelos, Don G. White, Xiaoming Zou · 发表于：Global Change Biology · 年份：2008 · DOI：10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01672.x · 被引用次数：544 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Species Distribution and Climate Change、Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics

Abstract Climate and litter quality are primary drivers of terrestrial decomposition and, based on evidence from multisite experiments at regional and global scales, are universally factored into global decomposition models. In contrast, soil animals are considered key regulators of decomposition at local scales but their role at larger scales is unresolved. Soil animals are consequently excluded from global models of organic mineralization processes. Incomplete assessment of the roles of soil animals stems from the difficulties of manipulating invertebrate animals experimentally across large geographic gradients. This is compounded by deficient or inconsistent taxonomy. We report a global decomposition experiment to assess the importance of soil animals in C mineralization, in which a common grass litter substrate was exposed to natural decomposition in either control or reduced animal treatments across 30 sites distributed from 43°S to 68°N on six continents. Animals in the mesofaunal size range were recovered from the litter by Tullgren extraction and identified to common specifications, mostly at the ordinal level. The design of the trials enabled faunal contribution to be evaluated against abiotic parameters between sites. Soil animals increase decomposition rates in temperate and wet tropical climates, but have neutral effects where temperature or moisture constrain biological activity. Our findings highlight that faunal influences on decomposition are dependent on prev...