Disturbances alter biodiversity via their specific characteristics, including severity and extent in the landscape, which act at different temporal and spatial scales. Biodiversity response to disturbance also depends on the community characteristics and habitat requirements of species. Untangling the mechanistic interplay of these factors has guided disturbance ecology for decades, generating mixed scientific evidence of biodiversity responses to disturbance. Understanding the impact of natural disturbances on biodiversity is increasingly important due to human‐induced changes in natural disturbance regimes. In many areas, major natural forest disturbances, such as wildfires, windstorms, and insect outbreaks, are becoming more frequent, intense, severe, and widespread due to climate change and land‐use change. Conversely, the suppression of natural disturbances threatens disturbance‐dependent biota. Using a meta‐analytic approach, we analysed a global data set (with most sampling concentrated in temperate and boreal secondary forests) of species assemblages of 26 taxonomic groups, including plants, animals, and fungi collected from forests affected by wildfires, windstorms, and insect outbreaks. The overall effect of natural disturbances on α‐diversity did not differ significantly from zero, but some taxonomic groups responded positively to disturbance, while others tended to respond negatively. Disturbance was beneficial for taxonomic groups preferring conditions associated with open canopies (e.g. hymenopterans and hoverflies), whereas ground‐dwelling groups and/or groups typically associated with shady conditions (e.g. epigeic lichens and mycorrhizal fungi) were more likely to be negatively impacted by disturbance. Across all taxonomic groups, the highest α‐diversity in disturbed forest patches occurred under moderate disturbance severity, i.e. with approximately 55% of trees killed by disturbance. We further extended our meta‐analysis by applying a unified diversity concept based on Hill numbers to estimate α‐diversity changes in different taxonomic groups across a gradient of disturbance severity measured at the stand scale and incorporating other disturbance features. We found that disturbance severity negatively affected diversity for Hill number q = 0 but not for q = 1 and q = 2, indicating that diversity–disturbance relationships are shaped by species relative abundances. Our synthesis of α‐diversity was extended by a synthesis of disturbance‐induced change in species assemblages, and revealed that disturbance changes the β‐diversity of multiple taxonomic groups, including some groups that were not affected at the α‐diversity level (birds and woody plants). Finally, we used mixed rarefaction/extrapolation to estimate biodiversity change as a function of the proportion of forests that were disturbed, i.e. the disturbance extent measured at the landscape scale. The comparison of intact and naturally disturbed forests revealed that both types of forests provide habitat for unique species assemblages, whereas species diversity in the mixture of disturbed and undisturbed forests peaked at intermediate values of disturbance extent in the simulated landscape. Hence, the relationship between α‐diversity and disturbance severity in disturbed forest stands was strikingly similar to the relationship between species richness and disturbance extent in a landscape consisting of both disturbed and undisturbed forest habitats. This result suggests that both moderate disturbance severity and moderate disturbance extent support the highest levels of biodiversity in contemporary forest landscapes.

Land-use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss. However, understanding how different components of land use drive biodiversity loss requires the investigation of multiple trophic levels across spatial scales. Using data from 150 agricultural grasslands in central Europe, we assess the influence of multiple components of local- and landscape-level land use on more than 4,000 above- and belowground taxa, spanning 20 trophic groups. Plot-level land-use intensity is strongly and negatively associated with aboveground trophic groups, but positively or not associated with belowground trophic groups. Meanwhile, both above- and belowground trophic groups respond to landscape-level land use, but to different drivers: aboveground diversity of grasslands is promoted by diverse surrounding land-cover, while belowground diversity is positively related to a high permanent forest cover in the surrounding landscape. These results highlight a role of landscape-level land use in shaping belowground communities, and suggest that revised agroecosystem management strategies are needed to conserve whole-ecosystem biodiversity.

Organismal functional strategies form a continuum from slow- to fast-growing organisms, in response to common drivers such as resource availability and disturbance. However, whether there is synchronisation of these strategies at the entire community level is unclear. Here, we combine trait data for >2800 above- and belowground taxa from 14 trophic guilds spanning a disturbance and resource availability gradient in German grasslands. The results indicate that most guilds consistently respond to these drivers through both direct and trophically mediated effects, resulting in a ‘slow-fast’ axis at the level of the entire community. Using 15 indicators of carbon and nutrient fluxes, biomass production and decomposition, we also show that fast trait communities are associated with faster rates of ecosystem functioning. These findings demonstrate that ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ strategies can be manifested at the level of whole communities, opening new avenues of ecosystem-level functional classification.

The impact of agricultural land use on biodiversity has been extensively examined through efforts to synthesize available data. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of a thorough synthesis describing the earthworm response to agricultural land-use Our meta-analysis compared undisturbed ecosystems (i.e., undisturbed grassland, primary forest) as controls against agricultural land-use treatments, with data extracted from 113 publications across 44 countries, yielding 1040 pairwise comparisons of earthworm density and biomass, and 536 pairwise comparisons of earthworm diversity. We also evaluated how agricultural land use effects on earthworms depend on soil, climate, and management practices reported in the studies. Arable cropland had significantly lower earthworm density (-18%), biomass (-15%), and species richness (-27%) compared to undisturbed sites. Conversely, higher earthworm density, biomass and species richness were observed in pastures, sites under agroforestry, crop management with fallow periods and crop-livestock integration. In regions with continental climates characterized by cool summers, agricultural land use exhibited positive effects on earthworm density and biomass. In sites with higher soil bulk density and lower organic matter content the adverse effects of agricultural land use are exacerbated. However, highly heterogeneous earthworm responses cannot be explained by the individual evaluation of climatic, soil-related, or management factors. Our results guide future efforts to address the data limitations that enable us to enhance our understanding of the interactive effects of various factors on earthworm responses to agricultural land use, as well as evidence-based and management strategies targeted at promoting sustainable agricultural systems while preserving soil biodiversity.