Biodiversity experiments revealed that plant diversity loss can decrease ecosystem functions across trophic levels. To address why such biodiversity-function relationships strengthen over time, we established experimental mesocosms replicating a gradient in plant species richness across treatments of shared versus non-shared history of (1) the plant community and (2) the soil fauna community. After 4 months, we assessed the multitrophic functioning of soil fauna via biomass stocks and energy fluxes across the food webs. We find that soil community history significantly enhanced belowground multitrophic function via changes in biomass stocks and community-average body masses across the food webs. However, variation in plant diversity and plant community history had unclear effects. Our findings underscore the importance of long-term community assembly processes for soil fauna-driven ecosystem function, with species richness and short-term plant adaptations playing a minimal role. Disturbances that disrupt soil community stability may hinder fauna-driven ecosystem functions, while recovery may require several years.

生物多样性实验表明，植物多样性丧失会降低营养级的生态系统功能。为了解决为什么这种生物多样性-功能关系会随着时间的推移而加强，我们建立了实验中宇宙，在（1）植物群落和（2）土壤动物群落的共享与非共享历史的处理中复制了植物物种丰富度的梯度。4 个月后，我们通过食物网中的生物量存量和能量通量评估了土壤动物群的多营养功能。我们发现，土壤群落历史通过改变整个食物网的生物量存量和群落平均体重，显着增强了地下多营养功能。然而，植物多样性和植物群落历史的变化影响尚不清楚。我们的研究结果强调了长期群落组装过程对土壤动物驱动的生态系统功能的重要性，其中物种丰富度和短期植物适应起的作用最小。破坏土壤群落稳定性的干扰可能会阻碍动物群落驱动的生态系统功能，而恢复可能需要数年时间。