Abstract
Biodiversity underpins ecosystem functionality and stability. It is becoming increasingly clear that soil
diversity and community complexity in particular (the presence of functionally diverse,
interconnected organisms) are decisive for the maintenance of multiple ecosystem processes such as
plant productivity and nutrient cycling. However, due to staggering soil diversity, difficulty to
manipulate, and inadequacy of prior ecological concepts when applied to soil, we lack a thorough
understanding of the link between soil biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and environmental
pressures across different soil types. This project will execute for the first time a series of microcosm
experiments simulating contrasting European grasslands where soil community complexity will be
manipulated to examine: 1) the effect of soil complexity on plant diversity, productivity and nutrient
cycling across different grassland soils and their stability under different environmental pressures
(drought, biomass removal, and intensified herbivory); 2) which key soil taxa and the interactions
they form might be universally responsible for enhanced ecosystem stability across soils and
stressors. The findings will not only advance our knowledge about the importance of soil biodiversity
for grassland functioning and stability under disturbance but also delineate the biotic network
properties and keystone taxa that are at the core of these processes and should be the focus of
conservation efforts.
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