Increasing the number of stressors reduces soil ecosystem services worldwide

作者：Matthias C. Rillig, Marcel G. A. van der Heijden, Miguel Berdugo, Yu‐Rong Liu, Judith Riedo, Carlos Sanz‐Lázaro, Eduardo Moreno‐Jiménez, Ferran Romero, Leho Tedersoo, Manuel Delgado‐Baquerizo · 发表于：Nature Climate Change · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1038/s41558-023-01627-2 · 被引用次数：173 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Ecosystem dynamics and resilience、Plant and animal studies

Increasing the number of environmental stressors could decrease ecosystem functioning in soils. Yet this relationship has never been globally assessed outside laboratory experiments. Here, using two independent global standardized field surveys, and a range of natural and human factors, we test the relationship between the number of environmental stressors exceeding different critical thresholds and the maintenance of multiple ecosystem services across biomes. Our analysis shows that, multiple stressors, from medium levels (>50%), negatively and significantly correlates with impacts on ecosystem services, and that multiple stressors crossing a high-level critical threshold (over 75% of maximum observed levels), reduces soil biodiversity and functioning globally. The number of environmental stressors >75% threshold was consistently seen as an important predictor of multiple ecosystem services, therefore improving prediction of ecosystem functioning. Our findings highlight the need to reduce the dimensionality of the human footprint on ecosystems to conserve biodiversity and function.