Drought suppresses soil predators and promotes root herbivores in mesic, but not in xeric grasslands.

ABSTRACT: Precipitation changes among years and locations along gradients of mean annual precipitation (MAP). The way those changes interact and affect populations of soil organisms from arid to moist environments remains unknown. Temporal and spatial changes in precipitation could lead to shifts in functional composition of soil communities that are involved in key aspects of ecosystem functioning such as ecosystem primary production and carbon cycling. We experimentally reduced and increased growing-season precipitation for 2 y in field plots at arid, semiarid, and mesic grasslands to investigate temporal and spatial precipitation controls on the abundance and community functional composition of soil nematodes, a hyper-abundant and functionally diverse metazoan in terrestrial ecosystems. We found

SUBMITTER: Franco ALC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6600938 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature