Theory suggests that biodiversity might help sustain multiple ecosystem functions. To evaluate possible biodiversity-multifunctionality relationships in a natural setting, we considered different spatial scales of diversity metrics for soil fungi in the northern forests of Japan. We found that multifunctionality increased with increasing local species richness, suggesting a limited degree of multifunctional redundancy. This diversity-multifunctionality relationship was independent of the compositional uniqueness of each community. However, we still found the importance of community composition, because there was a positive correlation between community dissimilarity and multifunctional dissimilarity across the landscape. This result suggests that functional redundancy can further decrease when spatial variations in identities of both species and functions are simultaneously considered at larger spatial scales. We speculate that different scales of diversity could provide multiple levels of insurance against the loss of functioning if high-levels of local species diversity and compositional variation across locations are both maintained. Alternatively, making species assemblages depauperate may result in the loss of multifunctionality.

Summary Biodiversity has been elucidated to be one of the major factors sustaining ecosystem functioning. The vast majority of studies showing a relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning have come from experiments, and this knowledge has not yet been applied to most real‐world cases of conservation and management. This is especially true in forest ecosystems, characterized by the dominance of long‐lived organisms (trees) and high levels of structural complexity and environmental heterogeneity. To apply biodiversity–function relationships to actual forest management, there are several issues to be considered. These include employing a cross‐taxon perspective, as some functions (e.g. soil biogeochemical processes) cannot be maintained by a narrow set of organisms, as is usually the case with experimental systems. More specifically, although the interaction between above‐ and below‐ground diversity is important for many functions in forests, there are few studies that evaluated the roles of diversity in both subsystems in a manner that could be informative in practice. To evaluate the roles of above‐ and below‐ground diversity to support natural soil ecosystem functions, we conducted a decomposition experiment in the northern forests of Japan, which are currently under restoration management. The restoration area consists of mosaics of different vegetation types by various revegetation activities and establishment of ungulate exclosures. Using structural equation modelling and linear mixed‐effects models, we assessed direct and indirect pathways from diversity to functions by focusing on both of taxonomic and functional diversity indices. To put our findings into practice, we utilized a trait‐based approach, which provides a link between the functional consequences of human influences and ecosystem structure. We found little direct effects of tree diversity on below‐ground functions such as decomposition rate and litter stabilization. However, once the diversities of understorey herbaceous plants and soil fungi were considered as a possible mediating explanatory factor, we found a significant effect of tree diversity to indirectly support these functions by supporting these other types of biodiversity. Particularly, we found that the models based on functional trait diversity, rather than on taxonomic species richness, best explained the variation in below‐ground processes. Synthesis and applications. Forest restoration in the northern forests of Japan has had no explicit objective to restore soil functions. Nevertheless, afforestation, and the associated increase in tree diversity as a measure of forest restoration, was, although often unintentionally, proven effective for the maintenance of multiple ecosystem functions, such as soil biogeochemical processes. This finding suggests a great potential for management to make local tree assemblages functionally dissimilar and diverse for the sake of supporting and enhancing fundamental ecosystem functions in forests.

Various local processes simultaneously shape ecological assemblages. β-diversity is a useful metric for inferring the underlying mechanisms of community assembly. However, β-diversity is not independent of γ-diversity, which may mask the local mechanisms that govern community processes across regions. Recent approaches that rely on an abundance-based null model could solve this sampling issue. However, if abundance varies widely across a region, the relative roles of deterministic and stochastic processes may be substantially misestimated. Furthermore, there is additional uncertainty as to whether null models used to correct γ-dependence in β-diversity should be independent of the observed patterns of species abundance distributions or whether the models should reflect these patterns. Here, we aim to test what null models with various constraints imply about the underlying processes shaping β-diversity. First, we found that an abundance-driven sampling effect could substantially influence the calculation of γ-corrected β-diversity. Second, we found that the null models that preserve the species abundance patterns could better reflect empirical patterns of spatial organization of individuals. The different implications generated from different applications of the null model approach therefore suggest that there are still frontiers regarding how local processes that shape species assemblages should be quantified. Carefully exploring each facet within different assembly processes is important.

Plant litter decomposition is key to carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. Soil fauna are important litter decomposers, but how their contribution to decomposition changes with alterations in plant composition and climate is not well established. Here, we quantified how soil mesofauna affect decomposition rate interactively with climate and leaf and root traits. We conducted an in situ decomposition experiment using eight dominant tree species per forest site across four elevations (50, 400, 600 and 1,000 m a.s.l.) in northern Japan. We used litterbags with different mesh sizes to control litter accessibility to soil mesofauna. We found stronger effects of plant litter quality on both decomposition rates and faunal contribution thereto, and perhaps of local variation in soil nutritional and moisture regimes, than climatic effects of elevation. This suggests that changing climate likely alters forest litter decomposition rates indirectly through shifts in tree community composition more than directly through changing abiotic regimes. Considering both leaves and roots as litter resources enlarged the overall contribution of variation in litter quality to decomposition rates and faunal effects thereupon, because litter quality and decomposition rate varied more between leaves and roots overall than among leaves within and across elevations. The contribution of mesofauna to litter decomposition was larger in nutrient‐rich litter than in recalcitrant litter across the elevational gradient, suggesting amplification of the effect of litter traits on decomposition through preference of soil fauna for their food resources. Our findings highlight the importance of considering synergistic influences of soil faunal activities with litter traits of both leaves and roots for better understanding biogeochemical processes across environmental gradients over space or time. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13027/suppinfo is available for this article.

Biodiversity loss can alter ecosystem functioning; however, it remains unclear how it alters decomposition—a critical component of biogeochemical cycles in the biosphere. Here, we provide a global-scale meta-analysis to quantify how changes in the diversity of organic matter derived from plants (i.e. litter) affect rates of decomposition. We find that the after-life effects of diversity were significant, and of substantial magnitude, in forests, grasslands, and wetlands. Changes in plant diversity could alter decomposition rates by as much as climate change is projected to alter them. Specifically, diversifying plant litter from mono- to mixed-species increases decomposition rate by 34.7% in forests worldwide, which is comparable in magnitude to the 13.6–26.4% increase in decomposition rates that is projected to occur over the next 50 years in response to climate warming. Thus, biodiversity changes cannot be solely viewed as a response to human influence, such as climate change, but could also be a non-negligible driver of future changes in biogeochemical cycles and climate feedbacks on Earth.

Biotic homogenization has been reported worldwide. Although simplification of communities across space is often significant at larger scales, it could also occur at the local scale by changing biotic interactions. This study aimed to elucidate local community processes driving biotic homogenization of soil faunal communities, and the possibility of biotic re-differentiation. We recorded species of oribatid mites in litter and soil layers along a gradient of forest conversion from monoculture larch plantation to primary forests in central Japan. We collected data for functional traits of the recorded species to quantify functional diversity. Then we quantified their taxonomic/functional turnover. Litter diversity was reduced in the larch-dominated stands, leading to habitat homogenization. Consequently, litter communities were biologically homogenized and differentiated in the plantations and in the natural forest, respectively. Turnover of functional traits for litter communities was lower and higher than expected by chance in the plantations and in the natural stand, respectively. This result suggests that the dominant assembly process shifts from limiting similarity to habitat filtering along the forest restoration gradient. However, support for such niche-based explanations was not observed for communities in the soil layer. In the monocultures, functional diversity expected from a given regional species pool significantly decreased for litter communities but not for those in the soil layer. Such discrepancy between communities in different layers suggests that communities more exposed to anthropogenic stresses are more vulnerable to the loss of their functional roles. Our study explains possible community processes behind the observed patterns of biological organization, which can be potentially useful in guiding approaches for restoring biodiversity.

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