Functional diversity enhances, but exploitative traits reduce tree mixture effects on microbial biomass

1. Soil microorganisms play key roles in terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Despite recent progress in elucidating the association between plant diversity and soil microorganisms, it remains unclear whether the functional properties of plant mixtures might alter this association. 2. We examined whether the effects of tree species mixtures on soil microbial biomass were impacted by the functional diversity (FD) and community-weighted-mean (CWM) of tree mixtures, by conducting a global meta-analysis involving 123 paired observations of tree mixtures and the corresponding monocultures from 38 studies in forests. 3. We found that the tree mixture effect on microbial biomass increased with the FD of specific leaf area (SLA), leaf N and P content, as well as the FD based on all of these traits plus leaf dry matter content. Meanwhile, the responses of microbial biomass to tree mixtures decreased with the CWM of SLA, leaf N, and P content. The effects of FD and CWM remained consi...