From litter and rhizodeposits to soil organisms: how do plant economic strategies affect soil micro-food web energy fluxes?
Abstract
Many ecosystem functions are supported by trophic interactions. Quantification of energy fluxes in soil food webs thus offers a promising perspective to explore the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The quantity and nutritional quality of plant-derived resources at the base of food webs can influence soil community structure, and the way energy flows through the soil food web. Yet, separating the respective contributions of litter and rhizodeposits in these dynamics remains challenging. While plant resource economic strategies strongly influence both the amount and quality of organic inputs, their effects on soil food web structure and functioning remains poorly understood.We applied a food web energetics approach to a 3-months mesocosm experiment manipulating the presence/ absence of 13 C pulse-labelled living plants and 15 N continuously labelled litter for fifteen herbaceous plant species with contrasted resource economic strategies. This allowed us to estimate the microbial consumption of rhizodeposits and litter, and to assess how plant economic strategies shaped short-term energy fluxes through the food web from soil microbes to nematodes and micro-arthropods.
We demonstrated quantitative and qualitative impacts of basal resources availability and plant economic strategies on soil food web energy fluxes. Living plants fuelled 30% higher total fluxes through rhizodeposition, but also higher fungivory (+270%) and predation (+40%), shifting the relative dominance of fungal and bacterial channels towards bacteria for litter and SOM consumption and towards fungi for microbivory. Finally, we found that the higher plant growth of acquisitive relative to conservative species was associated with higher energy fluxes due to higher consumption of rhizodeposits and soil organic matter (SOM), and that higher litter nutrient content was associated with higher relative importance of the fungal channel in litter and SOM consumption. Altogether, our results demonstrate how the resource economic strategies of plant species shape soil food web functioning through both rhizodeposition and litter production.
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BibTeX
@article{folacher2026from,
title = {{From litter and rhizodeposits to soil organisms: how do plant economic strategies affect soil micro-food web energy fluxes?}},
author = {Chloé Folacher and Matthieu Chauvat and Estelle Forey and Angèle Branger and Melanie M Pollierer and Ludovic Henneron},
journal = {Soil Biology and Biochemistry},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1016/j.soilbio.2026.110283},
url = {https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05790002v1},
note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - From litter and rhizodeposits to soil organisms: how do plant economic strategies affect soil micro-food web energy fluxes?
AU - Chloé Folacher
AU - Matthieu Chauvat
AU - Estelle Forey
AU - Angèle Branger
AU - Melanie M Pollierer
AU - Ludovic Henneron
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
JO - Soil Biology and Biochemistry
DO - 10.1016/j.soilbio.2026.110283
UR - https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05790002v1
AB - Many ecosystem functions are supported by trophic interactions. Quantification of energy fluxes in soil food webs thus offers a promising perspective to explore the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The quantity and nutritional quality of plant-derived resources at the base of food webs can influence soil community structure, and the way energy flows through the soil food web. Yet, separating the respective contributions of litter and rhizodeposits in these dynamics remains challenging. While plant resource economic strategies strongly influence both the amount and quality of organic inputs, their effects on soil food web structure and functioning remains poorly understood.We applied a food web energetics approach to a 3-months mesocosm experiment manipulating the presence/ absence of 13 C pulse-labelled living plants and 15 N continuously labelled litter for fifteen herbaceous plant species with contrasted resource economic strategies. This allowed us to estimate the microbial consumption of rhizodeposits and litter, and to assess how plant economic strategies shaped short-term energy fluxes through the food web from soil microbes to nematodes and micro-arthropods. We demonstrated quantitative and qualitative impacts of basal resources availability and plant economic strategies on soil food web energy fluxes. Living plants fuelled 30% higher total fluxes through rhizodeposition, but also higher fungivory (+270%) and predation (+40%), shifting the relative dominance of fungal and bacterial channels towards bacteria for litter and SOM consumption and towards fungi for microbivory. Finally, we found that the higher plant growth of acquisitive relative to conservative species was associated with higher energy fluxes due to higher consumption of rhizodeposits and soil organic matter (SOM), and that higher litter nutrient content was associated with higher relative importance of the fungal channel in litter and SOM consumption. Altogether, our results demonstrate how the resource economic strategies of plant species shape soil food web functioning through both rhizodeposition and litter production.
SN - 0038-0717
ER -