12 research outputs found
Soil detritivore functioning in heterogeneously contaminated soils
Verhoef, H.A. [Promotor]Berg, M.P. [Copromotor]Faber, J.H. [Copromotor
Biodiversity effects on soil processes explained by interspecific functional dissimilarity
The loss of biodiversity can have significant impacts on ecosystem functioning, but the mechanisms involved lack empirical confirmation. Using soil microcosms, we show experimentally that functional dissimilarity among detritivorous species, not species number, drives community compositional effects on leaf litter mass loss and soil respiration, two key soil ecosystem processes. These experiments confirm theoretical predictions that biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning can be predicted by the degree of functional differences among species