Andrew Barnes

Abstract Soil fauna contributes to a wide range of ecosystem functions via their trophic activities. Here we investigate how trophic diversity of soil animals varies across functional groups and major biomes. We use stable isotope analysis (13C/12C and 15N/14N ratios) of 17,306 samples of 28 high-rank taxa from 456 sites across 19 countries to inspect the variability in trophic diversity across climate regions and land-use types.

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Highlights The separation of macro-level and microbial food webs is typical but has important limits. A multilayered food web conceptual model is needed because microbial food webs are nested within macro-organisms. These multilayered microbial food webs likely influence the network dynamics of macro-level food webs. A multilayered food webs model opens new avenues for empirical investigations into the complexity of ecological networks.