Abstract. Bioturbating animals can affect physical and chemical soil properties on near-surface soil by either foraging for food or constructing suitable habitats. Thereby, bioturbation can influence the soil texture either sorting or mixing the different grain sizes clay, silt and sand during burrowing. Additionally, bioturbating animals can increase the macronutrients carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) through the transport of nutrients by vertically mixing the soil column and the addition of the bioturbators’ feces to the soil surface. To date, it is not clear how the effects of bioturbation on soil properties vary along an ecological gradient. Therefore, we compared the physical properties clay, silt and sand and the chemical contents of the macronutrients C, N and P for soil samples from mounds and the surrounding area as controls in three different climatic regions (arid, semi-arid and Mediterranean) of coastal Chile. To do so, we calculated the difference between the concentrations of paired mound and control samples. When comparing soil texture, we did not find significant differences between mound and control soil samples. For the macronutrient contents, the difference between mound and control C and N contents increased in the arid site and decreased in the two other research sites with increasing vegetation cover. Since we aimed to cover bioturbation patterns on a broader scale, we additionally compared our findings to other bioturbation studies performed in different biomes. Thereby, we found that other studies also show small differences in soil properties caused by bioturbation which are already sufficient to increase soil fertility.

中文翻译：

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生物扰动提高了资源匮乏的干旱气候地区近地表土壤的 C 和 N 含量，但在更温和的气候中显示出不利影响

摘要。生物扰动动物可以通过觅食或建造合适的栖息地来影响近地表土壤的物理和化学性质。因此，生物扰动会影响土壤质地，在挖洞过程中分选或混合不同粒度的粘土、淤泥和沙子。此外，生物扰动动物可以通过垂直混合土壤柱和将生物扰动动物的粪便添加到土壤表面来运输养分，从而增加常量营养素碳 (C)、氮 (N) 和磷 (P)。迄今为止，尚不清楚生物扰动对土壤特性的影响如何沿生态梯度变化。因此，我们比较了粘土、淤泥和沙子的物理特性以及常量营养素 C 的化学含量，来自土丘和周边地区的土壤样本的 N 和 P 作为智利沿海三个不同气候区域（干旱、半干旱和地中海）的对照。为此，我们计算了配对土墩和对照样品浓度之间的差异。在比较土壤质地时，我们没有发现土墩和对照土壤样本之间存在显着差异。对于常量营养素含量，随着植被覆盖度的增加，土墩和对照之间的 C 和 N 含量差异在干旱地点增加，而在其他两个研究地点减少。由于我们的目标是在更广泛的范围内涵盖生物扰动模式，因此我们还将我们的发现与在不同生物群落中进行的其他生物扰动研究进行了比较。从而，