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• Plant phenological functional types shape soil nematode community. • Evergreen tree species facilitate nematode abundance and energy fluxes. • Herbivores abundance is a key driver of energy fluxes. Plant-soil interactions in terrestrial ecosystems profoundly shape the structure and function of belowground communities. Soil nematodes play a vital role in facilitating key belowground ecological processes, however, it remains poorly understood how different plant phenological functional types regulate their community composition and function in tropical forest soils. To address this, we selected three tropical deciduous species— Terminalia bellirica , Melia azedarach , and Albizia lucidior —and three tropical evergreen species— Castanopsis indica , Trema orientalis , and Syzygium jambos —for a two-year common garden pot experiment in Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. We evaluated soil physicochemical properties, leaf functional traits, the nematode abundance and biomass, and their function (energy flux). Our results showed that evergreen species had higher aboveground biomass, leaf thickness, soil dissolved organic carbon, and soil total phosphorus compared to deciduous species. Furthermore, evergreen species exhibited greater abundance, biomass, and energy flux than deciduous species, with increases of 69.12 %, 93.47 %, and 107.55 % for herbivores, and increases of 46.51 %, 27.72 %, and 68.46 % for the total nematodes. Although herbivores abundance positively contributed to total energy flux, this effect was indirectly modulated by plant aboveground biomass and soil dissolved organic carbon. Our findings demonstrate that phenological functional types regulate herbivores by altering the resource quantity available to the soil food web, consequently shaping the community structure of soil nematodes and influencing the energy flow patterns. Based on this common garden pot experiment, we conclude that evergreen species enhance the abundance of herbivores and total soil nematodes, while simultaneously increasing soil carbon storage potential, relative to deciduous species.
Hou et al. (Sat,) studied this question.