Global environmental changes threaten the feeding activity of soil detritivores

Soil detritivores represent a major portion of terrestrial biodiversity and biomass. Their feeding activity accelerates the turnover of organic matter and nutrients, thereby enhancing energy and material flows within soil food webs. Yet, global environmental changes are increasingly disrupting terrestrial ecosystems, threatening soil detritivores and their ecological functions. We hypothesize that global environmental changes will result in a decline in the feeding activity of soil detritivores. To test this, we conduct a global meta-analysis, synthesizing 650 observations from 55 studies. Our results show that global environmental changes reduce the feeding activity of soil detritivores by 47.8% on average. Among GECs, climate change (-59.8%), chemical pollution (-57.6%), fire (-49.1%), and land-use intensification (-34%) exert the most pronounced detrimental effects. For climate change, drought (-68.9%) suppresses the feeding activity of soil detritivores to a far greater extent than warming (-25.4%). Notably, insecticides (-98.9%), fungicides (-59.7%), and heavy metals (-59.5%) are particularly harmful within chemical pollutants. The negative effects of land-use intensification are predominantly driven by mineral fertilization (-45.6%), whereas grazing (-20.3%) and tillage (-11.8%) have minor effects. The magnitude of reductions in soil detritivore feeding activity is strongly regulated by ecosystem type, soil properties (soil organic carbon and pH), and detritivore species richness and abundance. These findings suggest that global environmental change-induced declines in soil detritivore feeding activity may further impair energy transfer within soil food webs, with far-reaching implications for key ecosystem functioning in a rapidly changing global environment.