Text S1: Trait data We included traits which are commonly measured and shown to be key traits in affecting the organisms’ response to environmental change and/or to have functional significance: for carabid beetles [1 - 5], pollinators [6 - 8], earthworms [9 - 13], nematodes [14] and dung beetles [15 - 18]. Ecosystem functions are determined not only by the specimens per capita efficiency, but also by the specimens numerical abundance. Hence, we argue that in observational studies traits that affect community response to environmental change (response traits) and traits that affect ecosystem processes (effect traits) are both important for predicting ecosystem functioning, because species composition (with regard to species richness and abundances in a community) can be expected to be affected by species response traits while the efficiency of resource exploitation will be determined by species effect traits as well [19]. An example would be a community in which the dominant predator, though not possessing optimal traits for prey exploitation, nevertheless may reach high abundances – and exert high pressure on the prey community - due to being resilient to disturbance. Moreover, only few animal traits have been experimentally tested for their effect on ecosystem functioning and it is often hard to distinguish between response and effect traits because some traits may be both or response and effect traits can be strongly correlated [20 - 22]. Trait data for carabids included: body size (continuous), time of reproduction (spring, summer or inconclusive), activity period (diurnal, nocturnal or inconclusive), wing morphology (macropterous, brachipterous or dimorphic), overwintering strategy (adult, imago or inconclusive), trophic level (mainly herbivore, mainly predator or omnivore), humidity preference (dry, medium-dry, medium, medium-wet, wet or all), light preference (non-shaded, partly shaded, shaded) and habitat preferences (open, wooded or inconclusive). Trait data for pollinators included: nest place and construction (carder, cleptoparasite, excavator:ground, renter:existing cavities, renter:snail shells, social parasite), mean intertegular distance (ITD) of females (continuous), habitat specialism (number of main habitat use), diet specialization (oligolectic, polilectic), buzz pollinator (yes, no), tongue length (long, short), sociality (eusocial, solitary), voltinism (univoltine, univoltine or bivoltine, bivoltine, univoltine to multivoltine, multivoltine), total months active (continuous), emergence time (6 levels: Jan to Jun). Trait data for earthworms included: ecological group (edogeic, epigeic,anecic), weight of adults and juveniles (continuous), width of adults (continuous), number of segments (continuous), reproductive staregy (obligatory biparental, parthenogenetic), hatchling peaks (April to May, May to June), number of cocoons per worm (continuous), days to hatching (continuous), months to sexual maturity (continuous), dry weight of gut content (continuous), gut passage time of food in h (continuous), length of adults and juveniles (continuous), ph (continuous). Traits for nematodes included: length of adults and juveniles (continuous), width of adults and juveniles (continuous), mass of adults and juveniles (continuous), type of feeding interaction (bacterivorous, fungivorous, fungivorous & herbivorous, herbivorous, omnivorous, omnivorous), trophic level (2 levels: first and second). Traits for dung beetles included activity period (diurnal, nocturnal), nesting strategy (roller, tunneller), length (continuous), mass (continuous) and body size (large, small). References 1. Ribera I, Dolédec S, Downie IS, Foster GN. 2001 Effect of Land Disturbance and Stress on Species Traits of Ground Beetle Assemblages. Ecology 82: 1112–1129. 2. Driscoll DA, Weir T. 2005 Beetle Responses to Habitat Fragmentation Depend on Ecological Traits, Habitat Condition, and Remnant Size. Conserv. Biol. 19: 182–194. 3. Vanbergen AJ, Woodcock BA, Watt AD, Niemelä J. 2005 Effect of land-use heterogeneity on carabid communities at the landscape scale. Ecography 28: 3–16. 4. Lambeets K, Vandegehuchte ML, Maelfait J, Bonte D. 2008 Understanding the impact of flooding on trait-displacements and shifts in assemblage structure of predatory arthropods on river banks. J. Anim. Ecol. 77: 1162-1174. 5. Gerisch M, Agostinelli V, Henle K, Dziock F. 2012 More species, but all do the same: contrasting effects of flood disturbance on ground beetle functional and species diversity. Oikos 121: 508–515. 6. Moretti M, de Bello F, Roberts SPM, Potts SG. 2009 Taxonomical vs. functional responses of bee communities to fire in two contrasting climatic regions. J. Anim. Ecol. 78: 98–108. 7. Bommarco R, Biesmeijer JC, Meyer B, Potts SG, Pöyry J, et al. 2010 Dispersal capacity and diet breadth modify the response of wild bees to habitat loss. Proc. Biol. Sci. 277: 2075–82. 8. Williams NM, Crone EE, Roulston TH, Minckley RL, Packer L, et al. 2010. Ecological and life-history traits predict bee species responses to environmental disturbances. Biol. Conserv. 143: 2280–2291. 9. Edwards CA, Lofty JR. 1972 Biology of Earthworms. New York: Halsted Press. 10. Lofs-Holmin A. 1983 Reproduction and growth of common arable land and pasture species of earthworms (Lumbricidae) in laboratory cultures. Swed. J. 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Slade EM, Mann DJ, Villanueva JF, Lewis OT. 2007 Experimental evidence for the effects of dung beetle functional group richness and composition on ecosystem function in a tropical forest. J. Anim. Ecol. 76: 1094-1104. 17. Slade EM, Mann DJ, Lewis OT. 2011 Biodiversity and ecosystem function of tropical forest dung beetles under contrasting logging regimes. Biol. Cons. 144: 166-174. 18. Nichols E, Uriarte M, Bunker DE, Favila ME, Slade EM, et al. 2013. Trait-dependent response of dung beetle populations to tropical forest conversion at local and regional scales. Ecology 94: 180-189. 19. Lavorel S, Garnier E. 2002 Predicting changes in community composition and ecosystem functioning from plant traits. Func. Ecol. 16: 545–556. 20. Garnier E, Cortez J, Billes G, Navas M-L, Roumet C, et al. 2004. Plant functional markers capture ecosystem properties. Ecology 85: 2630–2637. 21. De Deyn GB, Cornelissen JHC, Bardgett RD. 2008 Plant functional traits and soil carbon sequestration in contrasting biomes. Ecol. Lett. 11: 516–31. 22. Pakeman RJ. 2011 Multivariate identification of plant functional response and effect traits in an agricultural landscape. Ecology 92: 1353–65.