Ecosystem Engineers in a Self-organized Soil

作者：Patrick Lavelle, Alister V. Spain, Manuel Blouin, George Gardner Brown, Thibaud Decaëns, Michel Grimaldi, Juan J. Jiménez, Doyle McKey, Jérôme Mathieu, Elena Velásquez, Anne Zangerlé · 发表于：Soil Science · 年份：2016 · DOI：10.1097/ss.0000000000000155 · 被引用次数：238 · 研究领域：Biocrusts and Microbial Ecology、Plant and Biological Electrophysiology Studies、Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics

Soils are self-organized ecological systems within which organisms interact within a nested suite of discrete scales. Microorganisms form communities and physical structures at the smallest scale (microns), followed by the community of their predators organized in microfoodwebs (tens of microns), the functional domains built by ecosystem engineers (centimeters to meters), ecosystems, and landscapes. Ecosystem engineers, principally plant roots, earthworms, termites, and ants, play key roles in creating habitats for other organisms and controlling their activities through physical and biochemical processes. The biogenic, organic, and organomineral structures that they produce accumulate in the soil space to form three-dimensional mosaics of functional domains, inhabited by specific communities of smaller organisms (microfauna and mesofauna, microorganisms) that drive soil processes through specific pathways. Ecosystem engineers also produce signaling and energy-rich molecules that act as ecological mediators of biological engineering processes. Energy-rich ecological mediators may selectively activate microbial populations and trigger priming effects, resulting in the degradation, synthesis, and sequestration of specific organic substrates. Signaling molecules inform soil organisms of their producers’ respective presences and change physiologies by modifying gene expression and through eliciting hormonal responses. Protection of plants against pests and diseases is largely ach...