Soil Fauna Feeding Modes Across Forest Biomes from 7,408 Isotope Samples

7,408 soil invertebrate samples from 228 forest sites across temperate to tropical biomes were analyzed for stable isotope composition (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N). The dataset by Sergey Tsurikov, last updated in 2026, investigates shifts in feeding modes from detritivory to microbivory in relation to litter quality and climate. Findings highlight litter C:N ratio as a primary driver of this shift, with implications for carbon cycling predictions.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between litter quality and soil fauna feeding modes based on δ¹⁵N values.
• Analyzing the influence of climate (mean annual temperature) on microbivory in soil invertebrates.
• Investigating context-dependent microbial carbon routing using δ¹³C values across different forest biomes.

Strengths

• Contains 7,408 individual soil invertebrate samples.
• Covers a broad geographic scale with data from 228 forest sites across multiple biomes.
• Includes stable isotope measurements (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) for ecological inference.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the primary data tables is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Sergey Tsurikov via figshare.

Collection Method

Stable isotope analysis (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) of collected soil invertebrate samples.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-04 09:00:59; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Forest sites across temperate to tropical biomes.