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Energy and biomass distribution in soil food webs of temperate and tropical forests

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Abstract

Soil food webs channel most of the energy in terrestrial ecosystems. Temperate and tropical forests host different soil invertebrate communities, but consequent differences in the structure and functioning of soil food webs between these major biomes remain unknown. Here, we calculate energy fluxes to explore generic patterns in biomass and energy distribution across micro-, meso- and macrofauna in forest ecosystems spanning from southern taiga to tropical rainforests. Tropical soil food webs have either larger (monsoon forest) or smaller (rainforest) animal biomass than temperate ones, but have consistently higher energy flux, higher share of large organisms (macrofauna) in total biomass and distinct energy distribution. Specifically, tropical soil food webs have proportionally higher predation rates than temperate soil food webs and rely more on plant consumption (living roots), but less on bacterial, fungal and litter consumption. Earthworms act as food-web engineers promoting detrital energy pathways (litter, soil and deadwood consumption) in mixed broadleaved forests overriding climate-associated differences among forests. Our study shows a major change in soil food web from “brown” temperate to “green” tropical functional state, explaining functional implications of soil invertebrate community turnover across biomes.

Data availability

Raw data underlying results of the present paper are available from Supplementary Data 1 and Figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29341058.

Code availability

Statistical R code underlying results of the present paper is available from Supplementary Data 1 and Figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29341058.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation in the framework of a Research group linkage programme 1071297—RUS—IP “Structure and functioning of belowground food webs across temperate and tropical ecosystems”. A.M.P. was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) in the framework of the Emmy Noether program (Project number 493345801) and iDiv (DFG–FZT 118, 202548816). S.S. and V.K. were supported by DFG in the framework of the collaborative German–Indonesian research project CRC990 – EFForTS (192626868—SFB 990). M.M.P. and S.L.B. were funded by the DFG Priority Program 1374 “BiodiversityExploratories” (SCHE 376/38-2). A.K. was supported by state assignment of the Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Centre, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, no.125013101229-9.

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Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Stefan Scheu, Alexei V. Tiunov.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Anton M. Potapov, Sarah L. Bluhm, Valentyna Krashevska, Melanie M. Pollierer, Zheng Zhou & Stefan Scheu

  2. Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz, Görlitz, Germany

    Anton M. Potapov, Andrey G. Zuev & Anna I. Zueva

  3. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Anton M. Potapov

  4. International Institute Zittau, TUD Dresden University of Technology, Zittau, Germany

    Anton M. Potapov

  5. A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    Irina Semenyuk, Varvara Migunova, Oksana Rozanova, Sergey M. Tsurikov, Andrey G. Zuev, Anna I. Zueva & Alexei V. Tiunov

  6. Joint Russian-Vietnamese Tropical Center, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Irina Semenyuk

  7. Functional Environmental Genomics, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Frankfurt, Germany

    Valentyna Krashevska

  8. Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Centre, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Syktyvkar, Russia

    Alexey Kudrin

  9. Institute for Forest Protection, Julius Kühn-Institute (JKI) – Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, Quedlinburg, Germany

    Melanie M. Pollierer

  10. Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Stefan Scheu

Authors

  1. Anton M. Potapov
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  2. Irina Semenyuk
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  3. Sarah L. Bluhm
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Contributions

A.M.P., S.S., and A.V.T. conceptualized the idea and designed the study. I.S., S.L.B., V.K., A.K., V.M., M.M.P., O.R., S.M.T., A.G.Z., and A.I.Z. collected data. A.M.P. compiled the data, did data analysis and wrote the manuscript. Z.Z. contributed to statistical analysis and discussion of results. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results and edited manuscript drafts.

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Anton M. Potapov.

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Potapov, A.M., Semenyuk, I., Bluhm, S.L. et al. Energy and biomass distribution in soil food webs of temperate and tropical forests.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-68083-8

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