Effects of tree species richness on topsoil carbon and fungal diversity in European planted mixed forests are modulated by environmental conditions

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62156489%3A43410%2F25%3A43927226" target="_blank" >RIV/62156489:43410/25:43927226 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117591" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117591</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117591" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117591</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Effects of tree species richness on topsoil carbon and fungal diversity in European planted mixed forests are modulated by environmental conditions

Original language description

Mixed-species forests have emerged as a promising approach to mitigate climate change impacts through enhanced carbon (C) sequestration while maintaining productivity, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services. However, we still have a poor understanding of the context-dependency of soil C sequestration in tree mixtures, particularly how it is influenced by plant-soil-microbe interactions and environmental conditions. Using soil samples collected from nine European sites within the global network of tree diversity experiments, TreeDivNet, we examined how tree species richness is associated with topsoil C stocks, fungal community composition and diversity, and their interactions. We further investigated the influence of biotic, edaphic, and climatic factors on the relationship between tree richness and topsoil C stocks. We hypothesised that increased tree species richness leads to increased topsoil C stocks and fungal diversity, and that this effect is modulated by site-specific interactions between biotic and abiotic factors. Overall, we found topsoil C stocks in stands with high tree diversity to be greater than in monocultures across the study sites. Lower soil fertility, cooler mean annual temperatures, and lower interannual variability of temperature and precipitation were found to correlate with positive effects of tree diversity on soil C stocks. While tree diversity did not directly influence fungal diversity, topsoil C stocks were positively correlated to fungal species richness. In addition, fungal richness showed a positive correlation with the net diversity effect of tree mixtures on topsoil C, suggesting that fungal diversity may be one of several factors contributing to the context-dependency of tree diversity effects on soil C stocks. Our study shows that tree species diversity can increase topsoil C storage across Europe, influenced both directly and indirectly by fungal diversity and environmental conditions. The mediation of direct and indirect linkages between tree diversity, fungal diversity and topsoil C stocks by local abiotic context highlights the need to improve our mechanistic understanding for site-specific management of soil C sequestration in tree mixtures to promote climate change mitigation in European forests.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

40102 - Forestry

Project

—

Continuities

O - Projekt operacniho programu

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Geoderma

ISSN

0016-7061

e-ISSN

1872-6259

Volume of the periodical

464

Issue of the periodical within the volume

December

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

13

Pages from-to

117591

UT code for WoS article

001625920400001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105021968497