Volkmar Wolters

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that primary producers, herbivorous insects and microbial decomposers seem to be particularly important drivers of ecosystem functioning, as shown by the strong and frequent positive associations of their richness or abundance with multiple ecosystem services.

TL;DR: Inclusion of soil animals will improve the predictive capabilities of region- or biome-scale decomposition models, soil animal influences on decomposition are important at the regional scale when attempting to predict global change scenarios, and the statistical relationship between decomposition rates and climate, at the global scale, is robust against changes in soil faunal abundance and diversity.

TL;DR: It is shown that even moderate increases in local land-use intensity (LUI) cause biotic homogenization across microbial, plant and animal groups, both above- and belowground, and that this is largely independent of changes in α-diversity.

TL;DR: Landscape diversity and percentage cover of certain land-use types might serve as useful indicators for species richness at the landscape scale, but the specific response patterns revealed in this study suggest that a variety of taxa must be included in this type of approach.

TL;DR: It is hypothesized that the activities of invertebrates which lead to an increase in SOM stability partly evolved as an adaptation to the need for increasing the suitability of their soil habitat.