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Peatlands are important reservoirs of terrestrial carbon (C), whose fate can have implications for the global C cycle and climate change. Many peatlands around the world have been drained for agriculture and forestry and restored later on hoping to reduce C emissions and improve water quality. However, the actual effects of these management practices remain unclear. To address this, we investigated the concentration and quality of dissolved organic C (DOC) and water chemistry (nutrient and Fe concentrations) in the surface water (creeks and ditches) of the natural, drained, and restored areas along an elevation gradient of the Baijianghe (BJH) peatland in northeast China from 2017 to 2020. We found significantly higher DOC concentrations in the natural than the drained area, with a heavier, more fulvic, and less aromatic DOC composition upslope, but the difference in DOC quality became smaller downslope. Restoration, on the other hand, did not bring DOC concentrations or quality back to the natural conditions within 2 years. These variations in DOC concentration and quality were closely associated with dissolved Fe concentration, highlighting the role of the Fe redox cycle, as Fe(II) can catalyse phenol oxidation activities and promote DOC production. Vegetation also affected DOC characteristics, as the drained and restored areas were dominated by shrubs with woodier tissues, which probably released less in amount but more recalcitrant DOC. Our study features rare side‐by‐side comparisons between pristine, drained, and restored areas of the same peatland, and sheds light on factors affecting peatland DOC under different management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity‐ecosystem function relationships have been widely studied in the field of microorganisms in recent years. The research findings revealed that microorganisms positively influence multiple ecosystem functions in diverse ecosystem types. However, the previous studies have neglected the fact that biodiversity at higher trophic levels is also required in order to maintain ecosystem multifunctionality. Here, in this study, the relationships among soil macro/meso faunal diversity, soil functions (C, N, and P functions), and ecosystem multifunctionality under different artificial disturbance conditions were investigated. The results revealed a positive relationship between the soil meso‐faunal diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality in primary forest (PM), secondary forest (SF), and deforested land (DL). However, correlations between macro‐faunal diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality decreased as the intensity of artificial disturbances increased, and no significant relationships were found in the DL and cultivated land (CL). We suggested that the soil faunal size was the main factor affecting the predictive ability of meso‐ or macro‐ faunas, and the soil meso‐faunal diversity was more suitable than soil macro‐fauna to orchestrate the ecosystem multifunctionality. Further, we demonstrated that the relative effects of the soil functions on ecosystem multifunctionality were changed with the increasing disturbance intensities. We proposed that soil function and meso‐/macro‐faunas contribute to ecosystem multifunctionality in different ways under natural or artificial disturbances. It was concluded that the relative contributions of the soil meso‐/macro‐fauna to the ecosystem multifunctionality were manipulated by their size, soil functions, and disturbance intensities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have determined the importance of soil biodiversity for maintaining ecosystem services and multifunctionality. However, the relationship between soil meso‐fauna biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality in the real world has yet to be evaluated. In this study, the relationships between soil meso‐fauna community compositions and ecosystem multifunctionality along a coastal‐inland distance gradient were investigated, including 1 km (1T), 15 km (2T), 30 km (3T), 45 km (4T), and 60 km (5T) locations. Our results showed that the soil properties were significantly indicated a decreasing trend after the 3T line. However, the soil meso‐fauna biodiversity indices were observed to have all reached the peak value at the 4T line. In addition, it was found that the soil meso‐fauna biodiversity indices were highly correlated with the ecosystem multifunctionality. These findings further confirmed the fact that the contributions of the soil meso‐fauna community biodiversity indices (59.34%) to ecosystem multifunctionality were as important as, or even more important than, those of the soil environmental factors (40.66%). Therefore, it was concluded that the variations in ecosystem multifunctionality were closely related to the changes in the soil meso‐fauna community biodiversity. In other words, soil meso‐fauna community compositions can be effectively used to predict ecosystem multifunctionality along coastal‐inland ecosystems. These findings, are the first study to provide empirical evidence linking soil meso‐fauna community compositions to ecosystem multifunctionality in real‐world coastal‐inland ecosystems. Certainly, future studies that combine multi‐trophic levels and consider their interactions will be able to clarify the relationships between the below‐ground soil fauna communities and ecosystem multifunctionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme precipitation often persists for multiple days with variable duration but has usually been examined at fixed duration. Here we show that considering extreme persistent precipitation by complete event with variable duration, rather than a fixed temporal period, is a necessary metric to account for the complexity of changing precipitation. Observed global mean annual‐maximum precipitation is significantly stronger (49.5%) for persistent extremes than daily extremes. However, both globally observed and modeled rates of relative increases are lower for persistent extremes compared to daily extremes, especially for Southern Hemisphere and large regions in the 0‐45°N latitude band. Climate models also show significant differences in the magnitude and partly even the sign of local mean changes between daily and persistent extremes in global warming projections. Changes in extreme precipitation therefore are more complex than previously reported, and extreme precipitation events with varying duration should be taken into account for future climate change assessments. Key Points: Precipitation from persistent extremes is increasing in most global land regionsGlobally observed and modeled persistent precipitation maxima relative increases are lower compared to daily extremesThe increases in annual‐maximum persistent precipitation per degree global warming across models are independent of the emissions scenario [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]