Results of distance-based linear models testing for relationships between a) sampling location, land-use type or abiotic soil properties and soil biota abundance or diversity patterns in marginal tests that relate each predictor group individually and in sequential tests that first extracted variation from location and land-use type (R² = 0.58) and b) abiotic soil properties and abundance or diversity patterns of individual soil biota groups in sequential tests that were first fitted for location and land-use type.

<p>Results of distance-based linear models testing for relationships between a) sampling location, land-use type or abiotic soil properties and soil biota abundance or diversity patterns in marginal tests that relate each predictor group individually and in sequential tests that first extracted variation from location and land-use type (R² = 0.58) and b) abiotic soil properties and abundance or diversity patterns of individual soil biota groups in sequential tests that were first fitted for location and land-use type.</p

The relationship between soil properties and diversity of soil biota.

<p>Distance-based RDA triplot showing the relationship between the diversity of soil fauna (arrows) and soil properties (lines) in three study regions (colours: blue, Schorfheide-Chorin; red, Hainich-Dün; green, Schwäbische-Alb) and six land-use types (symbols). Vectors for soil properties are only shown if multiple correlation coefficients >0.4 (clay, clay content; NO₃, nitrate content; N_t, total soil nitrogen & P, plant-available phosphorous). For a legend to the symbols please refer to <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0043292#pone-0043292-g001" target="_blank">Fig. 1</a>.</p

Variables of a) abiotic soil properties, b) soil biota abundance/biomass/concentration and c) soil biota diversity, measurement unit, data range and method.

<p>Soils are classified according to <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0043292#pone.0043292-IUSS1" target="_blank">[44]</a>, for further details see material and methods or <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0043292#pone.0043292.s001" target="_blank">supporting information S1</a>.</p><p>Classification of groups for follow-up models after obtaining a significant overall model for the relationship between abiotic soil properties and soil biota abundance:</p>1<p>bacteri.</p>2<p>total biomass of saprotrophic fungi.</p>3<p>arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.</p>4<p>yeasts.</p>5<p>soil fauna or diversity.</p>6<p>yeasts.</p>7<p>extracellular proteins.</p>8<p>soil fauna.</p><p>Abbreviations: Acidobact. = Acidobacteria, bact. = bacteria, tot. = total.</p