Rarity is a more reliable indicator of land-use impacts on soil invertebrate communities than other diversity metrics

Abstract

The effects of land use on soil invertebrates – an important ecosystem component – are poorly understood. We investigated land-use impacts on a comprehensive range of soil invertebrates across New Zealand, measured using DNA metabarcoding and six biodiversity metrics. Rarity and phylogenetic rarity – direct measures of the number of species or the portion of a phylogeny unique to a site – showed stronger, more consistent responses across taxa to land use than widely used metrics of species richness, effective species numbers, and phylogenetic diversity. Overall, phylogenetic rarity explained the highest proportion of land use-related variance. Rarity declined from natural forest to planted forest, grassland, and perennial cropland for most soil invertebrate taxa, demonstrating pervasive impacts of agricultural land use on soil invertebrate communities. Commonly used diversity metrics may underestimate the impacts of land use on soil invertebrates, whereas rarity provides clearer and more consistent evidence of these impacts.