Conclusions
Our results support the conclusion that soil biodiversity plays a role
in productivity of young, tree communities. The inter-trophic
interactions with fungal communities supported the positive
diversity-productivity relationship and complementarity effects.
Furthermore, our results demonstrate that interactions between plant
pathogen and ECM richness play a role in the relationship. Finally, we
showed that fungal communities dampen the effect of water stress on tree
productivity. Overall, our research shows that soil fungi play important
direct and indirect roles in biodiversity-ecosystem function
relationships in tree communities.