ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
Changes in belowground biodiversity during ecosystem development.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The influence of soil age on ecosystem structure and function across biomes.Nature communications · 2020Pooled it
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- Functional restructuring of the global soil microbiome under multiple stressors.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Comprehensive eco-geo-environmental assessment of the Sichuan-Yunnan ecological barrier zone using a random forest model.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Sampling Design and Sample Processing Affect Soil Biodiversity Assessments.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- Peatland degradation restructures microbial communities and reduces soil multifunctionality through amplified β-diversity turnover.Communications earth & environment · 2026Article
- Elevation modulates the effects of tourism disturbance on soil fungal and bacterial communities in a cold-temperate montane forest.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Trajectories and thresholds of multitrophic diversities and multiple functions in response to nitrogen enrichment.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Ground-dwelling arthropod community structure responds to an experimental gradient of tropical tree diversity.Oecologia · 2025Article
- Grassland degradation alters plant and soil biodiversity-multifunctionality relationships.Nature plants · 2025Article
- The role of extremophile microbiomes in terraforming Mars.Communications biology · 2025Review
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- Assembly of Abundant and Rare Bacterial and Fungal Communities in Different Typical Forest Types in the Zhongtiao Mountains.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- Multitrophic and Multidimensional Insights into Biodiversity and Functional Trait Responses to Precipitation Changes in Alpine Grasslands.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- Distinct Assembly Patterns of Soil Bacterial and Fungal Communities along Altitudinal Gradients in the Loess Plateau's Highest Mountain.Microbial ecology · 2025Article
- Soil biodiversity and function under global change.PLoS biology · 2025Review
- Plant Diversity Reduces the Risk of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Agroecosystems.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Compartment-specific dynamics of soil microbiota along aFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
29 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Belowground organisms play critical roles in maintaining multiple ecosystem processes, including plant productivity, decomposition, and nutrient cycling. Despite their importance, however, we have a limited understanding of how and why belowground biodiversity (bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates) may change as soils develop over centuries to millennia (pedogenesis). Moreover, it is unclear whether belowground biodiversity changes during pedogenesis are similar to the patterns observed for aboveground plant diversity. Here we evaluated the roles of resource availability, nutrient stoichiometry, and soil abiotic factors in driving belowground biodiversity across 16 soil chronosequences (from centuries to millennia) spanning a wide range of globally distributed ecosystem types. Changes in belowground biodiversity during pedogenesis followed two main patterns. In lower-productivity ecosystems (i.e., drier and colder), increases in belowground biodiversity tracked increases in plant cover. In more productive ecosystems (i.e., wetter and warmer), increased acidification during pedogenesis was associated with declines in belowground biodiversity. Changes in the diversity of bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates with pedogenesis were strongly and positively correlated worldwide, highlighting that belowground biodiversity shares similar ecological drivers as soils and ecosystems develop. In general, temporal changes in aboveground plant diversity and belowground biodiversity were not correlated, challenging the common perception that belowground biodiversity should follow similar patterns to those of plant diversity during ecosystem development. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that ecological patterns in belowground biodiversity are predictable across major globally distributed ecosystem types and suggest that shifts in plant cover and soil acidification during ecosystem development are associated with changes in belowground biodiversity over centuries to millennia.
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