Drylands store most of the global soil inorganic carbon (SIC), yet the extent to which this pool interacts with contemporary carbon (C) cycling remains poorly understood. To test whether SIC behaves primarily as an inert geological reservoir or instead bears a modern carbon imprint, we quantified SIC content and radiocarbon (∆ 14 C) at 42 dryland sites spanning broad aridity gradients across Eurasia. We also evaluated the clim...

Soil fungal communities are shaped by land use intensity (LUI) and environmental conditions, but their combined effects remain unclear. Using data from 300 forest and grassland plots across Germany from 2021, we analysed fungal taxa relative abundance and associations with environmental variables. Soil conditions, soil fungal diversity, and community composition were linked to ecosystem variables and differed significantly acr...

All ecosystems contain both sources and sinks for atmospheric carbon (C). A change in their balance of net and gross ecosystem carbon uptake, ecosystem‐scale carbon use efficiency (CUE ECO ), is a change in their ability to buffer climate change. However, anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition is increasing N availability, potentially shifting terrestrial ecosystem stoichiometry towards phosphorus (P) limitation. Depending on h...

Purpose Simultaneous effects of more than one global change driver on ecosystem functioning have rarely been assessed. Methods We disentangled the effects of region encompassing climatic and edaphic conditions, forest-management intensity and community plant diversity on litterfall quantity, quality and turnover in 27 temperate forests across an environmental gradient. Results Region significantly influenced litterfall and org...

Formation of mineral‐associated organic matter (MAOM) supports the accumulation and stabilization of carbon (C) in soil, and thus, is a key factor in the global C cycle. Little is known about the interplay of mineral type, land use and management intensity in MAOM formation, especially on subdecadal time scales. We exposed mineral containers with goethite or illite, the most abundant iron oxide and phyllosilicate clay in tempe...

Soil respiration is an important pathway of soil organic carbon losses in temperate grasslands; however, it is rarely studied across broad management intensity gradients in a landscape. Using the soda-lime method, we measured in-situ soil CO 2 efflux with single measurements of long exposure time (i.e. 3 day long) in 150 grasslands in three German regions in early summer 2018 and 2019. The grasslands ranged from unfertilized a...

Grassland management intensity influences nutrient cycling both directly, by changing nutrient inputs and outputs from the ecosystem, and indirectly, by altering the nutrient content, and the diversity and functional composition of plant and microbial communities. However, the relative importance of these direct and indirect processes for the leaching of multiple nutrients is poorly studied. We measured the annual leaching of...

Aerated topsoils are important sinks for atmospheric methane (CH 4 ) via oxidation by CH 4 ‐oxidizing bacteria (MOB). However, intensified management of grasslands and forests may reduce the CH 4 sink capacity of soils. We investigated the influence of grassland land‐use intensity (150 sites) and forest management type (149 sites) on potential atmospheric CH 4 oxidation rates (PMORs) and the abundance and diversity of MOB (wit...

Globally, soils store two to three times as much carbon as currently resides in the atmosphere, and it is critical to understand how soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and uptake will respond to ongoing climate change. In particular, the soil‐to‐atmosphere CO 2 flux, commonly though imprecisely termed soil respiration ( R S ), is one of the largest carbon fluxes in the Earth system. An increasing number of high‐frequency R S...

While forest management strongly influences biodiversity, it remains unclear how the structural and compositional changes caused by management affect different community dimensions (e.g. richness, specialisation, abundance or completeness) and how this differs between taxa. We assessed the effects of nine forest features (representing stand structure, heterogeneity and tree composition) on thirteen above‐ and belowground troph...

Climate change in Arctic ecosystems fosters permafrost thaw and makes massive amounts of ancient soil organic carbon ( OC ) available to microbial breakdown. However, fractions of the organic matter ( OM ) may be protected from rapid decomposition by their association with minerals. Little is known about the effects of mineral‐organic associations ( MOA ) on the microbial accessibility of OM in permafrost soils and it is not c...

The intensification of land use constitutes one of the main drivers of global change and alters nutrient fluxes on all spatial scales, causing landscape‐level eutrophication and contamination of natural resources. Changes in soil nutrient concentrations are thus indicative for crucial environmental issues associated with intensive land use. We measured concentrations of NO 3 –N, NH 4 –N, P, K, Mg, and Ca using 1,326 ion‐exchan...

Global change, especially land‐use intensification, affects human well‐being by impacting the delivery of multiple ecosystem services (multifunctionality). However, whether biodiversity loss is a major component of global change effects on multifunctionality in real‐world ecosystems, as in experimental ones, remains unclear. Therefore, we assessed biodiversity, functional composition and 14 ecosystem services on 150 agricultur...

Estimates of carbon leaching losses from different land use systems are few and their contribution to the net ecosystem carbon balance is uncertain. We investigated leaching of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), and dissolved methane (CH 4 ), at forests, grasslands, and croplands across Europe. Biogenic contributions to DIC were estimated by means of its δ 13 C signature. Leaching of biogenic DIC...

Aim This study investigates diversity patterns of vascular plants and plant‐feeding geometrid moths during montane rain forest regeneration in relation to the biogeographical and historical conditions of Mt Kilimanjaro. Location Investigations were undertaken on the south‐western slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro at altitudes between 2075 and 2265 m. Methods Thirteen plots were selected for this study. Four of these were situated in th...