Plant roots fuel tropical soil animal communities

• Published in: Ecology letters Vol. 26; no. 5; pp. 742 - 753
• Main Authors: Zhou, Zheng, Lu, Jing‐Zhong, Preiser, Jooris, Widyastuti, Rahayu, Scheu, Stefan, Potapov, Anton
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2023
• Subjects: Animals; basal resources; Body size; carbon; carbon cycle; deforestation; ecology; Ecosystem; Ecosystem management; Elaeis guineensis; energy channel; Food Chain; Food chains; Food webs; fuels; Indonesia; Land use; Litter; Litter removal; plant litter; Plant Roots; Plantations; rain forests; Rainforest; Rainforests; Roots; rubber; Soil; Soil fauna; soil food web; Soils; spatial distribution; Trenching; Tropical environments; Tropical soils; Vertical distribution; Indonesia; soil fauna; trenching; land use; litter; soil food web; energy channel; carbon cycle; roots; basal resources; deforestation

Belowground life relies on plant litter, while its linkage to living roots had long been understudied, and remains unknown in the tropics. Here, we analysed the response of 30 soil animal groups to root trenching and litter removal in rainforest and plantations in Sumatra, and found that roots are s...