Simple attributes predict the value of plants as hosts to fungal and arthropod communities

Fungal and arthropod consumers constitute the vast majority of global terrestrial biodiversity. Yet, the link from richness and composition of producer (plant) communities to the richness of consumer communities is poorly understood. Fungal and arthropod species richness could be a simple function of producer species richness at a site. Alternatively, it could be a complex function of chemical and structural properties of the producer species making up communities. We used databases on plant-fungus and plant-arthropod trophic links to derive the richness of consumer biota per associated plant species (coined link score). We assessed how well link scores could be predicted by simple attributes of plant species. Next, we used a multi-taxon inventory of 130 sites, representing all major habitat types in a country (Denmark), to investigate whether link scores summed over plant species in communities (coined link sum) could outperform simple plant species richness as predictor of fungal and ...