Drivers of β diversity.
Overall, models explained a relatively large amount of variance in β-diversity: mean Rc2 = 0.71, range 0.6 - 0.87; Table 2). Also, for β-diversity, a large amount of the variance was explained by site, as indicated by the difference in model fit between the conditional and marginal R2 (mean Rc2–Rm2 = 0.36, range 0.06-0.84; Table 2). This was most prominent for β-diversity of springtails, protists and fungi, where site explained at least twice as much variation as all other variables combined (Table 2), coinciding with patterns for ɑ-diversity. Conversely, the effect of site was negligible for nematodes, mites and bacteria (Table 2). Of the fixed effects, cessation of grazing was the main factor responsible for differences in β-diversity: grazing removal had a positive impact on β-diversity of soil fauna groups and a negative effect on β-diversity of fungi (Table 2), in line with the results on response ratio (Figure 3B). Moreover, pH was an explanatory variable for β-diversity of nematodes and springtails, but not for any of the soil microbial groups.