5. CONCLUSIONS
Altogether, our findings provide strong empirical evidence that deep
soil multifunctionality, which has largely been ignored in desert
ecosystems, differs from the multifunctionality of whole superficial
soils and slightly decreases as soil depth increases throughout the
entire profile, suggesting fundamental roles in regulating and buffering
overall ecological service functions. Particular microbial phyla rather
than total microbial diversity can best predict and explain the vertical
profile variation in multifunctionality in desert ecosystems. By
identifying and characterizing the quantitative relationships between
soil microbiomes and multifunctionality in vertical soil profiles, our
results advance knowledge of pivotal ecological factors such as
microbial community-multifunctionality relationships and will assist
microbial ecologists in predicting and explaining the slight variation
in ecosystem service functions in desert ecosystems.