Soil food webs across biotic complexity levels

This study was conducted using a controlled grassland pot experiment designed to manipulate soil biotic complexity across three levels: (1) microorganisms only, (2) microorganisms with nematodes, and (3) microorganisms with nematodes and microarthropods. At the end of the experiment, soil RNA was extracted to characterise the active bacterial, fungal, soil fauna, and viral communities. The objective was to examine how soil food webs are structured under increasing trophic complexity and to assess their functional and compositional resilience to drought stress.