CONCLUSIONS

For the first time we evaluated the importance of litter and root-derived resources for the soil animal food web in tropical ecosystems including rainforest and plantations. The response of a wide range of soil animal taxa indicates that both litter and root-derived resources shape belowground food webs in tropical ecosystems. Our results document the importance of living root supply as an alternative to leaf litter resource pathway in soil animal food webs of tropical ecosystems, which is even more important than litter-based resources in oil palm plantations. Beneficial effects of the addition of artificial leaves in oil palm plantations point to the potential of improving habitat structure, e.g. via mulching, to promote soil food webs and the services they provide. Root-derived resources altered the body size structure of soil animal communities by favouring in particular small and abundant taxa, reflecting that living roots essentially structure soil food webs and their functioning. Our study sheds light on the principle carbon pathways in tropical soil animal food webs and how they change with anthropogenic land use. This knowledge provides the basis for animal-cantered carbon modelling, ecosystem-friendly agricultural management, and conservation of soil animal biodiversity in the tropics.