Temperature and aridity regulate spatial variability of soil multifunctionality in drylands across the globe

TY - JOUR

T1 - Temperature and aridity regulate spatial variability of soil multifunctionality in drylands across the globe

AU - Durán, Jorge

AU - Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel

AU - Dougill, Andrew J.

AU - Guuroh, Reginald T.

AU - Linstädter, Anja

AU - Thomas, Andrew D.

AU - Maestre, Fernando T.

N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 242658 (BIO-COM), and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BIOMOD, ref. CGL2013-44661-R). J. Durán acknowledges support from the Funda©cão para Ciência e Tecnolo-gia (IF/00950/2014). M. Delgado-Baquerizo acknowledges support from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions of the Horizon 2020 Framework Program H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 under REA grant agreement no 702057. A. Linstadter and R. T. Guuroh acknowledge support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through WASCAL (grant 01LG1202-A). F. T. Maestre acknowledges support from the BIODESERT project (ERC grant agreement no. 647038). Publisher Copyright: © 2018 by the Ecological Society of America

PY - 2018/5/1

Y1 - 2018/5/1

N2 - The relationship between the spatial variability of soil multifunctionality (i.e., the capacity of soils to conduct multiple functions; SVM) and major climatic drivers, such as temperature and aridity, has never been assessed globally in terrestrial ecosystems. We surveyed 236 dryland ecosystems from six continents to evaluate the relative importance of aridity and mean annual temperature, and of other abiotic (e.g., texture) and biotic (e.g., plant cover) variables as drivers of SVM, calculated as the averaged coefficient of variation for multiple soil variables linked to nutrient stocks and cycling. We found that increases in temperature and aridity were globally correlated to increases in SVM. Some of these climatic effects on SVM were direct, but others were indirectly driven through reductions in the number of vegetation patches and increases in soil sand content. The predictive capacity of our structural equation modelling was clearly higher for the spatial variability of N- than for C- and P-related soil variables. In the case of N cycling, the effects of temperature and aridity were both direct and indirect via changes in soil properties. For C and P, the effect of climate was mainly indirect via changes in plant attributes. These results suggest that future changes in climate may decouple the spatial availability of these elements for plants and microbes in dryland soils. Our findings significantly advance our understanding of the patterns and mechanisms driving SVM in drylands across the globe, which is critical for predicting changes in ecosystem functioning in response to climate change.

AB - The relationship between the spatial variability of soil multifunctionality (i.e., the capacity of soils to conduct multiple functions; SVM) and major climatic drivers, such as temperature and aridity, has never been assessed globally in terrestrial ecosystems. We surveyed 236 dryland ecosystems from six continents to evaluate the relative importance of aridity and mean annual temperature, and of other abiotic (e.g., texture) and biotic (e.g., plant cover) variables as drivers of SVM, calculated as the averaged coefficient of variation for multiple soil variables linked to nutrient stocks and cycling. We found that increases in temperature and aridity were globally correlated to increases in SVM. Some of these climatic effects on SVM were direct, but others were indirectly driven through reductions in the number of vegetation patches and increases in soil sand content. The predictive capacity of our structural equation modelling was clearly higher for the spatial variability of N- than for C- and P-related soil variables. In the case of N cycling, the effects of temperature and aridity were both direct and indirect via changes in soil properties. For C and P, the effect of climate was mainly indirect via changes in plant attributes. These results suggest that future changes in climate may decouple the spatial availability of these elements for plants and microbes in dryland soils. Our findings significantly advance our understanding of the patterns and mechanisms driving SVM in drylands across the globe, which is critical for predicting changes in ecosystem functioning in response to climate change.

KW - carbon cycling

KW - climate change

KW - multifunctionality

KW - nitrogen cycling

KW - phosphorous cycling

KW - spatial heterogeneity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045955154&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/ecy.2199

DO - 10.1002/ecy.2199

M3 - Article

C2 - 29484631

AN - SCOPUS:85045955154

SN - 0012-9658

VL - 99

SP - 1184

EP - 1193

JO - Ecology

JF - Ecology

IS - 5

ER -