Climatic vulnerabilities and ecological preferences of soil invertebrates across biomes.

Unlike plants and vertebrates, the ecological preferences, and potential vulnerabilities of soil invertebrates to environmental change, remain poorly understood in terrestrial ecosystems globally. We conducted a cross-biome survey including 83 locations across six continents to advance our understanding of the ecological preferences and vulnerabilities of the diversity of dominant and functionally important soil invertebrate taxa, including nematodes, arachnids and rotifers. The diversity of invertebrates was analyzed through amplicon sequencing. Vegetation and climate drove the diversity and dominant taxa of soil invertebrates. Our results suggest that declines in forest cover and plant diversity, and reductions in plant production associated with increases in aridity, can result in reductions of the diversity of soil invertebrates in a drier and more managed world. We further developed global atlases of the diversity of these important soil invertebrates, which were cross-validated using an independent database. Our study advances the current knowledge of the ecological preferences and vulnerabilities of the diversity and presence of functionally important soil invertebrates in soils from across the globe. This information is fundamental for improving and prioritizing conservation efforts of soil genetic resources and management policies

Wild floral visitors are more important than honeybees as pollinators of avocado crops

Wild insects provide pollination services in agroecosystems. Avocado is an economically important crop grown in the Chilean Mediterranean climate region and exported worldwide. Avocado pollination is managed using honeybee hives, while the role of wild insects as pollinators remains poorly known. We quantified the relative contributions of wild floral visitors and honeybees to the fruit set of avocados in two contrasting seasons (2015 and 2016) in Central Chile. Observations were made in 60 trees grown nearby (~300 m) to remnant patches of native sclerophyll vegetation. We found that honeybees and wild insects accounted for 48.6% and 51.4% of total floral visitation, respectively, with a 68% taxonomic similarity of floral visitors between seasons. The presence of honeybees significantly modulated the floral visitor composition and modified plant-pollination network parameters, which resulted in the biotic homogenization of the interaction network, through the increase of shared tree–floral visitor interactions, to the detriment of exclusive interactions. Finally, wild insects were more effective than honeybees in pollinating avocado trees and their contribution was greatest during the dry year. Thus, honeybees alone cannot be relied upon to deliver maximum pollination. We highlight ecological intensification practices to encourage wild insect visits and avoid native vegetation replacement with orchards. Therefore, we emphasize that future ecological intensification research should address agricultural practices to promote wild insects and evaluate the role of native vegetation as wild pollinator habitat in agricultural landscapes

Global ecological predictors of the soil priming effect.

Identifying the global drivers of soil priming is essential to understanding C cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. We conducted a survey of soils across 86 globally-distributed locations, spanning a wide range of climates, biotic communities, and soil conditions, and evaluated the apparent soil priming effect using 13C-glucose labeling. Here we show that the magnitude of the positive apparent priming effect (increase in CO2 release through accelerated microbial biomass turnover) was negatively associated with SOC content and microbial respiration rates. Our statistical modeling suggests that apparent priming effects tend to be negative in more mesic sites associated with higher SOC contents. In contrast, a single-input of labile C causes positive apparent priming effects in more arid locations with low SOC contents. Our results provide solid evidence that SOC content plays a critical role in regulating apparent priming effects, with important implications for the improvement of C cycling models under global change scenarios

Unearthing the soil-borne microbiome of land plants

Plant–soil biodiversity interactions are fundamental for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, the existence of a set of globally distributed topsoil microbial and small invertebrate organisms consistently associated with land plants (i.e., their consistent soil-borne microbiome), together with the environmental preferences and functional capabilities of these organisms, remains unknown. We conducted a standardized field survey under 150 species of land plants, including 58 species of bryophytes and 92 of vascular plants, across 124 locations from all continents. We found that, despite the immense biodiversity of soil organisms, the land plants evaluated only shared a small fraction (less than 1%) of all microbial and invertebrate taxa that were present across contrasting climatic and soil conditions and vegetation types. These consistent taxa were dominated by generalist decomposers and phagotrophs and their presence was positively correlated with the abundance of functional genes linked to mineralization. Finally, we showed that crossing environmental thresholds in aridity (aridity index of 0.65, i.e., the transition from mesic to dry ecosystems), soil pH (5.5; i.e., the transition from acidic to strongly acidic soils), and carbon (less than 2%, the lower limit of fertile soils) can result in drastic disruptions in the associations between land plants and soil organisms, with potential implications for the delivery of soil ecosystem processes under ongoing global environmental change

Urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil ecosystem services

9 páginas.- 5 figuras.- 53 referencias.- Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-024-00154-zGreenspaces are important for sustaining healthy urban environments and their human populations. Yet their capacity to support multiple ecosystem services simultaneously (multiservices) compared with nearby natural ecosystems remains virtually unknown. We conducted a global field survey in 56 urban areas to investigate the influence of urban greenspaces on 23 soil and plant attributes and compared them with nearby natural environments. We show that, in general, urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil multiservices, with only six of 23 attributes (available phosphorus, water holding capacity, water respiration, plant cover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and arachnid richness) significantly greater in greenspaces, and one (available ammonium) greater in natural areas. Further analyses showed that, although natural areas and urban greenspaces delivered a similar number of services at low (>25% threshold) and moderate (>50%) levels of functioning, natural systems supported significantly more functions at high (>75%) levels of functioning. Management practices (mowing) played an important role in explaining urban ecosystem services, but there were no effects of fertilisation or irrigation. Some services declined with increasing site size, for both greenspaces and natural areas. Our work highlights the fact that urban greenspaces are more similar to natural environments than previously reported and underscores the importance of managing urban greenspaces not only for their social and recreational values, but for supporting multiple ecosystem services on which soils and human well-being depends.We thank the researchers involved in the MUSGONET project for collection of field data and soil samples. This study was supported by a 2019 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation (URBANFUN), and by the BES grant agreement No LRB17\1019 (MUSGONET). M.D-B. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. M.D-B. is also supported by a project of the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and the Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014−2020 Objetivo temático “01 - Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación”) associated with the research project P20_00879 (ANDABIOMA). D.J.E. is supported by the Hermon Slade Foundation (HSF21040). H.C. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32101335), and The Young Science and Technology Talent Support Project of Jilin Province (QT202226), J.D. is supported by Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by BAST (No. BYESS2023456) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and M.B. by a Ramón y Cajal grant (RYC2021-031797-I) from Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. F.A. acknowledges support from FONDECYT 1220358 and C.P. support from the EU’s H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101000224. A.R. acknowledges support from the FCT (SFRH/BDP/108913/2015), the MCTES, FSE, UE, and the CFE (UIDB/04004/2021) research unit financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC). S.A. thanks the ANID/FONDECYT 1170995 and the ANID ACT 192027. T.P.M. acknowledges funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (UID 118981). T.G. and T.U.N. were supported by the research projects J4-3098 and J4-4547, and by the Research Program in Forest Biology, Ecology, and Technology (P4-0107) of the Slovenian Research Agency. J.P.V. thanks the SERB (EEQ/2021/001083, SIR/2022/000626), DST (DST/INT/SL/P-31/2021) and Banaras Hindu University, IoE (6031) incentives grant for providing support for Phytomicrobiome and soil microbiome research. L.W. and J.W. were supported by the Program for Introducing Talents to Universities (B16011), and the Ministry of Education Innovation Team Development Plan (2013-373).Peer reviewe

Biogenic factors explain soil carbon in paired urban and natural ecosystems worldwide

12 páginas.- 4 figuras.- 49 referencia.- Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01646-z .- Full-text access to a view-only version (Acceso a texto completo de sólo lectura en este enlace) https://rdcu.be/c8vZiUrban greenspaces support multiple nature-based services, many of which depend on the amount of soil carbon (C). Yet, the environmental drivers of soil C and its sensitivity to warming are still poorly understood globally. Here we use soil samples from 56 paired urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems worldwide and combine soil C concentration and size fractionation measures with metagenomics and warming incubations. We show that surface soils in urban and natural ecosystems sustain similar C concentrations that follow comparable negative relationships with temperature. Plant productivity’s contribution to explaining soil C was higher in natural ecosystems, while in urban ecosystems, the soil microbial biomass had the greatest explanatory power. Moreover, the soil microbiome supported a faster C mineralization rate with experimental warming in urban greenspaces compared with natural ecosystems. Consequently, urban management strategies should consider the soil microbiome to maintain soil C and related ecosystem services.This study was supported by a 2019 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation (URBANFUN), and by BES Grant Agreement No. LRB17\1019 (MUSGONET). M.D-B., P.G-P., J.D. and A.R. acknowledge support from TED2021-130908B-C41/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ Unión Europea NextGenerationEU/PRTR. M.D.-B. also acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. M.D.-B. was also supported by a project of the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and the Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 Objetivo temático ‘01 - Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación’) associated with the research project P20_00879 (ANDABIOMA). D.J.E. was supported by the Hermon Slade Foundation. J.P.V. thanks the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) (EEQ/2021/001083, SIR/2022/000626) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India (DST/INT/SL/P-31/2021) and Banaras Hindu Univeristy-IoE (6031)-incentive grant for financial assistance for research in plant-microbe interaction and soil microbiome. J.D. and A. Rodríguez acknowledge support from the FCT (2020.03670.CEECIND and SFRH/BDP/108913/2015, respectively), as well as from the MCTES, FSE, UE and the CFE (UIDB/04004/2021) research unit financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC).Peer reviewe

Global hotspots for soil nature conservation

19 páginas.- 5 figuras.- 98 referencias.- Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05292-xSoils are the foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems1. However, unlike for plants and animals, a global assessment of hotspots for soil nature conservation is still lacking2. This hampers our ability to establish nature conservation priorities for the multiple dimensions that support the soil system: from soil biodiversity to ecosystem services. Here, to identify global hotspots for soil nature conservation, we performed a global field survey that includes observations of biodiversity (archaea, bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) and functions (critical for six ecosystem services) in 615 composite samples of topsoil from a standardized survey in all continents. We found that each of the different ecological dimensions of soils—that is, species richness (alpha diversity, measured as amplicon sequence variants), community dissimilarity and ecosystem services—peaked in contrasting regions of the planet, and were associated with different environmental factors. Temperate ecosystems showed the highest species richness, whereas community dissimilarity peaked in the tropics, and colder high-latitudinal ecosystems were identified as hotspots of ecosystem services. These findings highlight the complexities that are involved in simultaneously protecting multiple ecological dimensions of soil. We further show that most of these hotspots are not adequately covered by protected areas (more than 70%), and are vulnerable in the context of several scenarios of global change. Our global estimation of priorities for soil nature conservation highlights the importance of accounting for the multidimensionality of soil biodiversity and ecosystem services to conserve soils for future generations.This project received funding from the British Ecological Society (agreement LRA17\1193; MUSGONET). C.A.G. and N.E. were funded by DFG–FZT 118, 202548816; C.A.G. was supported by FCT-PTDC/BIA-CBI/2340/2020; M.D.-B. was supported by RYC2018-025483-I, PID2020-115813RA-I00\MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and P20_00879. M.A.M.-M. and S.A. were funded by FONDECYT 1181034 and ANID-PIA-Anillo INACH ACT192057. J.D. and A.R. acknowledge support from IF/00950/2014, 2020.03670.CEECIND, SFRH/BDP/108913/2015 and UIDB/04004/2020. Y.-R.L. was supported by 2662019PY010 from the FRFCU. L.T. was supported by the ESF grant PRG632. F.B. and J.L.M. were supported by i-LINK+2018 (LINKA20069) funded by CSIC. C.T.-D. was supported by the Grupo de Biodibersidad & Cambio Global UBB–GI 170509/EF. C.P. was supported by the EU H2020 grant agreement 101000224. H.C. was supported by NSFC32101335, FRFCU2412021QD014 and CPSF2021M690589. J.P.V. was supported by DST (DST/INT/SL/P-31/2021) SERB (EEQ/2021/001083) and BHU-IoE (6031).Peer reviewe

Unearthing the soil‐borne microbiome of land plants

17 páginas.- 8 figuras.- referenciasPlant–soil biodiversity interactions are fundamental for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, the existence of a set of globally distributed topsoil microbial and small invertebrate organisms consistently associated with land plants (i.e., their consistent soil-borne microbiome), together with the environmental preferences and functional capabilities of these organisms, remains unknown. We conducted a standardized field survey under 150 species of land plants, including 58 species of bryophytes and 92 of vascular plants, across 124 locations from all continents. We found that, despite the immense biodiversity of soil organisms, the land plants evaluated only shared a small fraction (less than 1%) of all microbial and invertebrate taxa that were present across contrasting climatic and soil conditions and vegetation types. These consistent taxa were dominated by generalist decomposers and phagotrophs and their presence was positively correlated with the abundance of functional genes linked to mineralization. Finally, we showed that crossing environmental thresholds in aridity (aridity index of 0.65, i.e., the transition from mesic to dry ecosystems), soil pH (5.5; i.e., the transition from acidic to strongly acidic soils), and carbon (less than 2%, the lower limit of fertile soils) can result in drastic disruptions in the associations between land plants and soil organisms, with potential implications for the delivery of soil ecosystem processes under ongoing global environmental change.This study work associated with this manuscript was founded by a Large Research Grant from the British Ecological Society (No LRB17\1019; MUSGONET). M.D.-B. was supported from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the TED2021-130908B-C41 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR.” R.O.-H. was supported by the Ramón y Cajal program from the MICINN (RYC-2017 22032), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2019-106004RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, by the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) y la Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 Objetivo temático “01 - Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación”): P20_00323 (FUTUREVINES), and by the Fondo Europeo Agrícola de Desarrollo Rural (FEADER) through the “Ayudas a Grupos operativos de la Asociación Europea de Innovación (AEI) en materia de productividad y sostenibilidad agrícolas”, References: GOPC-CA-20-0001 (O.G. Suelos Vivos) and GO2022-01 (O.G. Viñas Vivas). TG and TUN were supported by the research project J4-1766 “Methodology approaches in genome-based diversity and ecological plasticity study of truffles from their natural distribution areas”, the Research Program in Forest Biology, Ecology and Technology (P4-0107), and a Young Researcher scheme (TUN) of the Slovenian Research Agency. J.L.B.-P. is supported by the EMERGIA programme of the Junta de Andalucía (EMC21_00207).Peer reviewe

Finite size scaling in the local abundances of geographic populations

We analyzed the statistical distribution of intra-specific local abundances for a set North American breeding bird species. We constructed frequency plots for every species and found that they showed long-tail power-law behavior, truncated at an upper abundance cut-off value. Based on finite size scaling arguments, we investigated whether frequency curves may be considered scaled copies of each other. Data collapse was possible after taking powers of the total abundance of each species, in order to correct deviations from the underlying universal finite size scaling function (UFSS). The UFSS power law exponent oscillated in time within the regime of unbounded variance, which is consistent with the wild fluctuations that characterize ecological phenomena. We speculate that our results may eventually be linked to other law-like macroecological phenomena, such as energetic constraints reported in allometric scaling