Soil food web models can calculate the fluxes of carbon and nitrogen between soil organisms and so estimate the impact of individual organisms on ecosystem processes. These modelling approaches go beyond standard techniques in ecology. So, an open-source tool supporting them along with an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses could help. We present the R package soilfoodwebs, which calculates carbon and nitrogen fluxes through food webs and contributes four new features that are documented in the literature but unavailable in open-source software: (1) diet and physiological rates that balance multiple chemical elements, (2) estimates of parameter and structural uncertainty, (3) estimates of direct and indirect effects of taxa on ecosystem processes, and (4) a conversion from equilibrium food web analyses to simulations that can estimate the response to change. soilfoodwebs balances carbon and nitrogen demand by adjusting each organism's diet and the efficiency with which they use carbon. We outline the theory behind the package and demonstrate its functions using soil food web models available in the literature. Our analysis shows that the calculation of fluxes and the contributions of individual taxa to mineralization or decomposition rates is the strength of the soilfoodwebs package and soil food web models. We also show that more detailed information on population regulation (i.e., density-dependence) is needed for using these models to predict trends over time. Outputs from soil food web models can be compared with ecosystem measurements (e.g., mineralization, decomposition) and guide empirical work towards functionally important and undocumented soil biodiversity.

土壤食物网模型可以计算土壤生物之间的碳和氮通量，从而估计单个生物对生态系统过程的影响。这些建模方法超出了生态学中的标准技术。因此，一个支持他们并分析他们的优势和劣势的开源工具可能会有所帮助。我们推出 R 包oilfoodwebs，它计算通过食物网的碳和氮通量，并提供了文献中记录但在开源软件中不可用的四个新特征：（1）平衡多种化学元素的饮食和生理速率，（2）参数和结构的估计不确定性，(3) 类群对生态系统过程的直接和间接影响的估计，以及 (4) 从平衡食物网分析到可以估计变化响应的模拟的转换。土壤食物网通过调整每种生物体的饮食及其利用碳的效率来平衡碳和氮的需求。我们概述了该包背后的理论，并使用文献中提供的土壤食物网模型展示了其功能。我们的分析表明，通量的计算以及单个类群对矿化或分解率的贡献是土壤食物网包和土壤食物网模型的优势。我们还表明，使用这些模型来预测一段时间内的趋势需要有关人口调节（即密度依赖性）的更详细信息。土壤食物网模型的输出可以与生态系统测量值（例如矿化、分解）进行比较，并指导实证工作开展具有重要功能和未记录的土壤生物多样性。