Aboveground and belowground biodiversity have complementary effects on ecosystem functions across global grasslands

作者：Catarina S. C. Martins, Manuel Delgado‐Baquerizo, Ramesha H. Jayaramaiah, Dongxue Tao, Juntao Wang, Tadeo Sáez‐Sandino, Hongwei Liu, Fernando T. Maestre, Peter B. Reich, Brajesh Kumar Singh · 发表于：PLoS Biology · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1371/journal.pbio.3002736 · 被引用次数：33 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Interactions、Plant and animal studies

Grasslands are integral to maintaining biodiversity and key ecosystem services and are under threat from climate change. Plant and soil microbial diversity, and their interactions, support the provision of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality). However, it remains virtually unknown whether plant and soil microbial diversity explain a unique portion of total variation or shared contributions to supporting multifunctionality across global grasslands. Here, we combine results from a global survey of 101 grasslands with a novel microcosm study, controlling for both plant and soil microbial diversity to identify their individual and interactive contribution to support multifunctionality under aridity and experimental drought. We found that plant and soil microbial diversity independently predict a unique portion of total variation in above- and belowground functioning, suggesting that both types of biodiversity complement each other. Interactions between plant and soil microbial diversity positively impacted multifunctionality including primary production and nutrient storage. Our findings were also climate context dependent, since soil fungal diversity was positively associated with multifunctionality in less arid regions, while plant diversity was strongly and positively linked to multifunctionality in more arid regions. Our results highlight the need to conserve both above- and belowground diversity to sustain grassland multifunctionality in a drier world and indica...