Mammal traits and soil biogeochemistry: Functional diversity relates to composition of soil organic matter

Abstract

Mammal diversity affects carbon concentration in Amazonian soils. It is known that some species traits determine carbon accumulation in organisms (e.g., size and longevity), and are also related to feeding strategies, thus linking species traits to the type of organic remains that are incorporated into the soil. Trait diversity in mammal assemblages – that is, its functional diversity – may therefore constitute another mechanism linking biodiversity to soil organic matter (SOM) accumulation. To address this hypothesis, we analyzed across 83 mammal assemblages in the Amazon biome (Guyana), the elemental (by ED‐XRF and CNH analysis) and molecular (FTIR‐ATR) composition of SOM of topsoils (401 samples) and trait diversity (functional richness, evenness, and divergence) for each mammal assemblage. Lower mammal functional richness but higher functional divergence were related to higher content of carbonyl and aliphatic SOM, potentially affecting SOM recalcitrance. Our results might allow the design of biodiversity management plans that consider the effect of mammal traits on carbon sequestration and accumulation in soils.

Island biodiversity in peril: Anticipating a loss of mammals' functional diversity with future species extinctions

“…Specifically, we gathered the following traits for each species: (i) body mass (Wilman et al., 2014), (ii) diet (Wilman et al., 2014), (iii) adult snout‐to‐vent length (Myhrvold et al., 2015), (iv) litter size (Myhrvold et al., 2015), and (v) generation length (estimated from information on species age at first reproduction and reproductive life span; Pacifici et al., 2013). Data about these functional traits are widely available for most species, providing fundamental information about their biology, the generational replacement time, their vulnerability to being threatened, and the role they perform in ecosystems (Chichorro et al., 2019, 2022; Losada et al., 2023).…”