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Biodiversity is declining on a global scale with detrimental effects on ecosystem functioning. Effects of reduced tree diversity on the diversity of aboveground animals have been studied in detail, whereas the response of soil animals remains poorly understood. We analyzed seasonal variations of soil oribatid mite communities as major soil detritivores along a tree diversity gradient as implemented in the Biodiversity - Ecosystem Functioning Experiment in China. A total of 24,898 oribatid mites were collected over two years and eight sampling periods. Generally, density and species richness of oribatid mites significantly differed among the four seasons and were highest in winter. By contrast, tree diversity did not significantly affect the density and species richness of oribatid mites as main factor, but its effect varied with season, however, the variations were generally small. Also, oribatid mite community composition varied with seasons but not significantly with tree diversity. Further, functional traits and functional diversity of oribatid mites significantly changed with seasons, but this varied with tree diversity although these variations were small. Overall, the effect of season on soil oribatid mite communities considerably exceeded that of tree diversity, indicating that oribatid mite communities in soil are mainly structured by seasonal variations in abiotic factors and resources outweighing the role of tree diversity. The results highlight the necessity of considering temporal variations when analyzing relationships between plant diversity and soil animal communities.
Chen et al. (Sat,) studied this question.