Diversity and asynchrony in soil microbial communities stabilizes ecosystem functioning

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical advances have revealed the importance of biodiversity for stabilizing ecosystem functions through time. Despite the global degradation of soils, whether the loss of soil microbial diversity can destabilize ecosystem functioning is poorly understood. Here, we experimentally quantified the contribution of soil fungal and bacterial communities to the temporal stability of four key ecosystem functions related to biogeochemical cycling. Microbial diversity enhanced the temporal stability of all ecosystem functions and this pattern was particularly strong in plant-soil mesocosms with reduced microbial richness where over 50% of microbial taxa were lost. The stabilizing effect of soil biodiversity was linked to asynchrony among microbial taxa whereby different soil fungi and bacteria promoted different ecosystem functions at different times. Our results emphasize the need to conserve soil biodiversity for the provisioning of multiple ecosystem functions that soils provide to the society.