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.

Closely related species are often assumed to be functionally similar. Phylogenetic information is thus widely used to infer functional diversity and assembly of communities. In contrast, evolutionary processes generating functional similarity of phylogenetically distinct taxa are rarely addressed in this context. To investigate the impact of convergent evolution on functional diversity (FD) and phylogenetic diversity (PD), we reconstructed the phylogenetic structure of carabid trophic groups. We then analyzed the mandible shapes using geometric morphometrics to link specialization in functional morphology with feeding specialization among herbivores, generalist carnivores, and specialized consumers of Collembola. Our results show that carabid feeding groups are paraphyletic. Herbivory evolved at least twice and specialization to Collembola predation at least three times. Species within feeding groups share a remarkably similar mandible morphology, which evolved convergently. While specialized mandibles of herbivores and collembolan specialists represent an adaptation to their main food source, the particular mandible morphologies do not necessarily reflect the degree of food specialization within feeding groups. Only a few species with a specialized herbivorous mandible may occasionally feed on animals, but the range of specific food resources in generalist carnivore species is large, despite an almost identical mandible shape. Thus, convergent evolution in specialized feeding groups reverses the relationship between PD and functional similarity compared with generalist carnivores. We conclude that phylogenetic relationship is a poor proxy of FD in carabids. Moreover, the inconsistencies between relatedness, morphological adaptation, and ecological function require caution in the characterization of functional groups. Rather than assuming general relationships between PD and FD, we suggest integrating the analysis of evolutionary processes into functional community analyses.

1. Collembola are an important potential food source for carnivorous arthropods living on the soil surface. Nevertheless, due to their effective evasive manoeuvres, Collembola are not an easy prey. Several carabid groups, however, have evolved morphological specialisations to overcome this otherwise effective defence strategy. The adaptive value of this specialisation is still unclear, since some generalist carabids also consume collembolans. 2. Feeding experiments with the collembolan specialist Notiophilus biguttatus and four generalist carnivorous carabids revealed that the specialised species are more efficient in hunting Collembola than the generalist species. 3. A comparison between specialised and generalist carabid species subjected to a pure collembolan diet further suggests that Collembola are only a dietary supplement for generalists: the generalist carnivore Bembidion lampros decreased in weight and had a higher mortality rate when fed exclusively with collembolans. 4. Analogously, a third experiment shows that edaphic mites or other non‐collembolan soil arthropods are just a nutritional supplement for N. biguttatus , since mortality increased when they were fed exclusively with these groups. The adaptation toward Collembola as prey, in contrast, does not constrain N. biguttatus , since they even increased in weight when fed with drosophila. 5. The enhanced hunting efficiency of N. biguttatus on Collembola compared to generalist species supports the hypothesis that the convergent evolution of mandibles in all collembolan specialist carabids is highly adaptive. The advantage of specialisation most probably is reinforced by the fact that generalist carabids are not real competitors for specialists, due to their poor efficiency in utilising collembolans.

Across the tree of life, organismal functional strategies form a continuum from slow-to fast-growing organisms, in response to common drivers such as resource availability and disturbance. However, the synchronization of these strategies at the entire community level is untested. We combine trait data for >2800 above-and belowground taxa from 14 trophic guilds spanning a disturbance and resource availability gradient in German grasslands. 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. Fast trait communities were also associated with faster rates of whole ecosystem functioning. These findings demonstrate that ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ strategies can be manifested at the level of whole ecosystems, opening new avenues of ecosystem-level functional classification.