Anthropogenic climate change is altering precipitation regimes at a global scale. While precipitation changes have been linked to changes in the abundance and diversity of soil and litter invertebrate fauna in forests, general trends have remained elusive due to mixed results from primary studies. We used a meta‐analysis based on 430 comparisons from 38 primary studies to address associated knowledge gaps, (i) quantifying impacts of precipitation change on forest soil and litter fauna abundance and diversity, (ii) exploring reasons for variation in impacts and (iii) examining biases affecting the realism and accuracy of experimental studies. Precipitation reductions led to a decrease of 39% in soil and litter fauna abundance, with a 35% increase in abundance under precipitation increases, while diversity impacts were smaller. A statistical model containing an interaction between body size and the magnitude of precipitation change showed that mesofauna (e.g. mites, collembola) responded most to changes in precipitation. Changes in taxonomic richness were related solely to the magnitude of precipitation change. Our results suggest that body size is related to the ability of a taxon to survive under drought conditions, or to benefit from high precipitation. We also found that most experiments manipulated precipitation in a way that aligns better with predicted extreme climatic events than with predicted average annual changes in precipitation and that the experimental plots used in experiments were likely too small to accurately capture changes for mobile taxa. The relationship between body size and response to precipitation found here has far‐reaching implications for our ability to predict future responses of soil biodiversity to climate change and will help to produce more realistic mechanistic soil models which aim to simulate the responses of soils to global change.

中文翻译：

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荟萃分析表明降水变化对森林土壤和凋落物动物群的影响取决于体型

人为气候变化正在改变全球范围内的降水状况。虽然降水变化与森林中土壤和枯落物无脊椎动物群的丰度和多样性的变化有关，但由于初步研究的结果好坏参半，总体趋势仍然难以捉摸。我们使用基于 38 项初步研究的 430 项比较的荟萃分析来解决相关知识差距，(i) 量化降水变化对森林土壤和凋落物动物群丰度和多样性的影响，(ii) 探索影响变化的原因，以及 (iii) ）检查影响实验研究真实性和准确性的偏差。降水减少导致土壤和凋落物动物丰度下降 39%，降水增加则丰度增加 35%，而多样性影响较小。包含体型与降水变化幅度之间相互作用的统计模型表明，中型动物（例如螨虫、跳虫）对降水变化的反应最大。分类丰富度的变化仅与降水变化的幅度相关。我们的结果表明，体型大小与分类单元在干旱条件下生存或受益于高降水的能力有关。我们还发现，大多数实验控制降水的方式与预测的极端气候事件比预测的年平均降水变化更加一致，而且实验中使用的实验地块可能太小，无法准确捕获移动类群的变化。这里发现的身体大小和对降水的响应之间的关系对于我们预测土壤生物多样性对气候变化的未来响应的能力具有深远的影响，并将有助于产生更现实的机械土壤模型，旨在模拟土壤对全球变化的响应。