Global change alters the composition and functioning of ecosystems by creating novel environmental conditions and thereby selecting for specific traits of organisms. Thus, trait-based approaches are promising tools to more mechanistically understand compositional and functional shifts in ecological communities as well as the dependency of response and effect traits upon global change. Such approaches have been particularly successful for the study of plant communities in terrestrial ecosystems. However, given the intimate linkages between aboveground and belowground compartments as well as the significance of plants as integrating organisms across those compartments, the role of plant traits in affecting soils communities has been understudied. This special issue contains empirical studies and reviews of plant trait effects on soil organisms and functions. Based on those contributions, we discuss here plasticity in trait expression, the context-dependency of plant trait effects, time lags in soil biotic responses to trait expression, and limitations of measured plant traits. We conclude that plant trait-based approaches are an important tool to advance soil ecological research, but also identify critical limitations and next steps.

中文翻译：

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植物性状对土壤生物和功能的影响

全球变化通过创造新的环境条件来改变生态系统的组成和功能，从而选择生物体的特定特征。因此，基于性状的方法是一种很有前途的工具，可以更机械地理解生态群落的组成和功能变化，以及响应和影响性状对全球变化的依赖性。这些方法对于陆地生态系统植物群落的研究特别成功。然而，考虑到地上和地下区室之间的密切联系以及植物作为跨这些区室整合生物体的重要性，植物性状在影响土壤群落中的作用尚未得到充分研究。本期特刊包含植物性状对土壤生物和功能影响的实证研究和评论。基于这些贡献，我们在这里讨论性状表达的可塑性、植物性状效应的背景依赖性、土壤生物对性状表达的反应的时间滞后以及测量的植物性状的局限性。我们的结论是，基于植物性状的方法是推进土壤生态研究的重要工具，但也确定了关键的局限性和后续步骤。