Ecosystems worldwide undergo rapid reorganization driven primarily by anthropogenic processes, such as land use and climate change. As a result, biodiversity is declining and ecosystem functioning is altered,
either directly or indirectly as a result of biodiversity change. Forests host a large share of all terrestrial taxa on Earth and they play a key role in global carbon cycles. Here, decomposition of organic matter such as deadwood is an important ecosystem process which is driven by a complex interaction of climatic factors and decomposer biodiversity. To make a projection of the future of forest biodiversity and the global forest carbon sink, a better understanding is needed how forest use and climate interactively affect decomposer biodiversity and carbon release from wood decomposition. To close this knowledge gap, BIOCOMP is using a combination of complementary methodological approaches operating at different spatial scales. To measure the effects of forest use and climate on biodiversity and decomposition rates, a distributed experiment has been established which represent the major climate zones. Each site contains two plots which represent a contrast in forest use (natural vs. anthropogenic). At these sites, biodiversity of arthropods as well as of fungi and bacteria in deadwood and soil are assessed and wood decomposition rates are measured. For this, experiments with fresh deadwood were implemented which allow to separate the contribution of different functional groups of decomposers to wood decomposition. In addition, further experiments are conducted in the field and in climate chambers to study the mechanisms underlying global patterns.
The BIOCOMP project generates a better understanding of the global drivers of decomposer biodiversity and decomposition processes and as such, provide the scientific basis for developing a new generation of climate and forest policies that consider the intimate connections between climate change, land use and biodiversity.
