Metabolic diversity and microbial biomass in forest soils across climatic and tree species diversity gradients

The biogeochemical cycling in forest ecosystems is highly dependent on the interactions between plants and soil. Tree species affect element cycling through deposition in throughfall, litterfall, microbial activities in soil and rhizosphere processes. Tree species diversification has been suggested for maintaining forest ecosystem services and combining provisioning and supporting services within multifunctional and sustainable forestry. However, the understanding of the role of biodiversity in forests is unclear, in particular concerning the microbial diversity and activity in soils. Here we synthesize results from measurements of bacterial metabolic diversity and microbial biomass in soils sampled in the 209 plots of the Exploratory Platform of the FunDivEUROPE project (http://www.fundiveurope.eu/). This Exploratory Platform is a network of comparative plots of 1-5 tree species established in existing mature forest in 6 countries. These six focal regions represent important European forest types along the gradient from boreal forest to Mediterranean forest. We analysed the impact of tree species richness and the role of other controlling factors on the metabolic diversity of soil bacteria and on microbial biomass.