title: Functionally and phylogenetically diverse plant communities key to soil biota.
abstract: Recent studies assessing the role of biological diversity for ecosystem functioning indicate that the diversity of functional traits and the evolutionary history of species in a community, not the number of taxonomic units, ultimately drives the biodiversity--ecosystem-function relationship. Here, we simultaneously assessed the importance of plant functional trait and phylogenetic diversity as predictors of major trophic groups of soil biota (abundance and diversity), six years from the onset of a grassland biodiversity experiment. Plant functional and phylogenetic diversity were generally better predictors of soil biota than the traditionally used species or functional group richness. Functional diversity was a reliable predictor for most biota, with the exception of soil microorganisms, which were better predicted by phylogenetic diversity. These results provide empirical support for the idea that the diversity of plant functional traits and the diversity of evolutionary lineages in a community are important for maintaining higher abundances and diversity of soil communities.
authors.affiliation: CNRS, Ecotron-UPS 3248, Campus Baillarguet, 34980 Montferrier-sur-Lez, France. a.milcu@imperial.ac.uk
authors.forename: Alexandru
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Milcu
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Allan
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Roscher
authors.forename: Tania
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jenkins
authors.forename: Sebastian T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Flynn
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bessler
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Buscot
authors.forename: Christof
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Engels
authors.forename: Marlén
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gubsch
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: König
authors.forename: Annett
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lipowsky
authors.forename: Jessy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Loranger
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Renker
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Scherber
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Thébault
authors.forename: Tesfaye
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wubet
authors.forename: Wolfgang W
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Weisser
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Scheu
authors.forename: Nico
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Eisenhauer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D008954:Models, Biological; D010802:Phylogeny; D010944:Plants / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D012987:Soil
chemical_list: D012987:Soil