The selective effects of environmental change on the functional diversity of soil decomposers

Whether decomposition can be affected by the biodiversity of soil organisms is an important question. Biodiversity is commonly expressed through indices that are based on species richness and abundances. Soil processes tend to saturate at low levels of species richness. A component of biodiversity is functional diversity, and we have shown that the absence of the influence of species richness on decomposition switched into a positive relationship between fauna diversity and decomposition when we expressed biodiversity in terms of interspecific functional dissimilarity. Communities with functionally dissimilar species are characterized by complementary resource use and facilitative interactions among species. It is suggested that the effects of environmental changes on ecosystem functions such as decomposition can be better understood if we have more knowledge about the selective effect of these changes on specific facets of soil biodiversity, such as functional diversity.