Fig. 4: Trade-offs in the response of plant and soil microbial diversity and SOC under N enrichment. | Nature Communications

Fig. 4: Trade-offs in the response of plant and soil microbial diversity and SOC under N enrichment.

From: Critical thresholds for co-benefits of carbon accumulation and biodiversity conservation under global nitrogen enrichment

Fig. 4: Trade-offs in the response of plant and soil microbial diversity and SOC under N enrichment.

a Critical thresholds of above- and belowground compartments and SOC. Values are mean values ± standard deviation (SD). Regressions of each variable and significant differences before and after the threshold (two-sided Mann–Whitney U-test) are presented in Supplementary Figs. 6 and 7. Moving-window associations between biodiversity responses and SOC responses along N gradients for bacteria (b), fungi (c), and plants (d). Dots represent bootstrapped coefficients of the fixed effects within each subset window. The sign of each dot (relative to the zero line, where values > 0 indicate positive associations and values < 0 indicate negative associations) reflects whether biodiversity and SOC respond in the same (co-increase or co-decline) or in opposite directions. The slope of the fitted line indicates how biodiversity-SOC associations change across the N gradient: a positive slope suggests strengthening associations with increasing N input, whereas a negative slope suggests weakening or reversal. The dashed lines denote the nonlinear trend fitted by GAMs. Vertical dashed lines and inset numbers indicate N enrichment thresholds, and the solid lines represent the linear fits at both sides of each threshold. Significant differences between before and after the threshold are determined using a two-sided Mann–Whitney U-test in Supplementary Fig. 8. Created in BioRender. Jiao, S. (2025) https://BioRender.com/814s45u. Source data are provided as a Source data file.

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