Global fine-resolution data on springtail abundance and community structure.

Springtails (Collembola) inhabit soils from the Arctic to the Antarctic and comprise an estimated ~32% of all terrestrial arthropods on Earth. Here, we present a global, spatially-explicit database on springtail communities that includes 249,912 occurrences from 44,999 samples and 2,990 sites. These data are mainly raw sample-level records at the species level collected predominantly from private archives of the authors that were quality-controlled and taxonomically-standardised.

Pervasive associations between dark septate endophytic fungi with tree root and soil microbiomes across Europe.

Trees interact with a multitude of microbes through their roots and root symbionts such as mycorrhizal fungi and root endophytes. Here, we explore the role of fungal root symbionts as predictors of the soil and root-associated microbiomes of widespread broad-leaved trees across a European latitudinal gradient. Our results suggest that, alongside factors such as climate, soil, and vegetation properties, root colonization by ectomycorrhizal, arbuscular mycorrhizal, and dark septate endophytic fungi also shapes tree-associated microbiomes.

Controlling biases in targeted plant removal experiments.

Targeted removal experiments are a powerful tool to assess the effects of plant species or (functional) groups on ecosystem functions. However, removing plant biomass in itself can bias the observed responses. This bias is commonly addressed by waiting until ecosystem recovery, but this is inherently based on unverified proxies or anecdotal evidence.

Globally invariant metabolism but density-diversity mismatch in springtails.

Soil life supports the functioning and biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems. Springtails (Collembola) are among the most abundant soil arthropods regulating soil fertility and flow of energy through above- and belowground food webs. However, the global distribution of springtail diversity and density, and how these relate to energy fluxes remains unknown.

Experimentally increased snow depth affects high Arctic microarthropods inconsistently over two consecutive winters.

Climate change induced alterations to winter conditions may affect decomposer organisms controlling the vast carbon stores in northern soils. Soil microarthropods are particularly abundant decomposers in Arctic ecosystems. We studied whether increased snow depth affected microarthropods, and if effects were consistent over two consecutive winters.

Mosses modify effects of warmer and wetter conditions on tree seedlings at the alpine treeline.

Climate warming enables tree seedling establishment beyond the current alpine treeline, but to achieve this, seedlings have to establish within existing tundra vegetation. In tundra, mosses are a prominent feature, known to regulate soil temperature and moisture through their physical structure and associated water retention capacity. Moss presence and species identity might therefore modify the impact of increases in temperature and precipitation on tree seedling establishment at the arctic-alpine treeline.

Invasive earthworms unlock arctic plant nitrogen limitation.

Arctic plant growth is predominantly nitrogen (N) limited. This limitation is generally attributed to slow soil microbial processes due to low temperatures. Here, we show that arctic plant-soil N cycling is also substantially constrained by the lack of larger detritivores (earthworms) able to mineralize and physically translocate litter and soil organic matter.

Soil organic carbon depletion and degradation in surface soil after long-term non-growing season warming in High Arctic Svalbard.

Arctic tundra active-layer soils are at risk of soil organic carbon (SOC) depletion and degradation upon global climate warming because they are in a stage of relatively early decomposition. Non-growing season (NGS) warming is particularly pronounced, and observed increases of CO emissions during experimentally warmed NGSs give concern for great SOC losses to the atmosphere. Here, we used snow fences in Arctic Spitsbergen dwarf shrub tundra to simulate 1.

The Legacy Effects of Winter Climate on Microbial Functioning After Snowmelt in a Subarctic Tundra.

Warming-induced increases in microbial CO release in northern tundra may positively feedback to climate change. However, shifts in microbial extracellular enzyme activities (EEAs) may alter the impacts of warming over the longer term. We investigated the in situ effects of 3 years of winter warming in combination with the in vitro effects of a rapid warming (6 days) on microbial CO release and EEAs in a subarctic tundra heath after snowmelt in spring.

Detecting macroecological patterns in bacterial communities across independent studies of global soils.

The emergence of high-throughput DNA sequencing methods provides unprecedented opportunities to further unravel bacterial biodiversity and its worldwide role from human health to ecosystem functioning. However, despite the abundance of sequencing studies, combining data from multiple individual studies to address macroecological questions of bacterial diversity remains methodically challenging and plagued with biases. Here, using a machine-learning approach that accounts for differences among studies and complex interactions among taxa, we merge 30 independent bacterial data sets comprising 1,998 soil samples from 21 countries.

Towards the co-ordination of terrestrial ecosystem protocols across European research infrastructures.

The study of ecosystem processes over multiple scales of space and time is often best achieved using comparable data from multiple sites. Yet, long-term ecological observatories have often developed their own data collection protocols. Here, we address this problem by proposing a set of ecological protocols suitable for widespread adoption by the ecological community.

Traits underpinning desiccation resistance explain distribution patterns of terrestrial isopods.

Predicted changes in soil water availability regimes with climate and land-use change will impact the community of functionally important soil organisms, such as macro-detritivores. Identifying and quantifying the functional traits that underlie interspecific differences in desiccation resistance will enhance our ability to predict both macro-detritivore community responses to changing water regimes and the consequences of the associated species shifts for organic matter turnover. Using path analysis, we tested (1) how interspecific differences in desiccation resistance among 22 northwestern European terrestrial isopod species could be explained by three underlying traits measured under standard laboratory conditions, namely, body ventral surface area, water loss rate and fatal water loss; (2) whether these relationships were robust to contrasting experimental conditions and to the phylogenetic relatedness effects being excluded; (3) whether desiccation resistance and hypothesized underlying traits could explain species distribution patterns in relation to site water availability.