Blind spots in global soil biodiversity and ecosystem function research

Abstract

Soils harbor a substantial fraction of the world's biodiversity, contributing to many crucial ecosystem functions. It is thus essential to identify general macroecological patterns related to the distribution and functioning of soil organisms to support their conservation and governance. Here we identify and characterize the existing gaps in soil biodiversity and ecosystem function data across soil macroecological studies and >11,000 sampling sites. These include significant spatial, environmental, taxonomic, and functional gaps, and an almost complete absence of temporally explicit data. We also identify the limitations of soil macroecological studies to explore general patterns in soil biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships, with only 0.6% of all sampling sites having a non-systematic coverage of both biodiversity and function datasets. Based on this information, we provide clear priorities to support and expand soil macroecological research.

Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils

“…In agreement with Guerra et al [ 134 ], there is a need to establish a wider international effort for regular, long-term monitoring of different Antarctic environments in order to acquire data which can show temporal shifts in both soil nutrient content and in microbial community composition.…”

“…Given that there are only limited data on nitrogen cycling processes in Antarctic soils, and given the importance of N-cycling as a core component of ecosystem servicing, we offer the following recommendations: In agreement with Guerra et al [ 134 ], there is a need to establish a wider international effort for regular, long-term monitoring of different Antarctic environments in order to acquire data which can show temporal shifts in both soil nutrient content and in microbial community composition. Given that much of the basic data on soil chemistry from terrestrial Antarctica are decades out of date, new datasets are desperately needed if we are to understand the effects of a changing Antarctic climate.…”

Fungal guilds and soil functionality respond to tree community traits rather than to tree diversity in European forests

“…Tree species diversity loss is paralleled by a reduction in overall diversity and ES of forests (Ampoorter et al, 2020;van der Plas et al, 2016), including a decrease in microbial diversity and the turnover of soil biochemical cycles (Delgado-Baquerizo et al, 2016;Penone et al, 2019). As many ES delivered by forests depend on soil-inhabiting organisms (Delgado-Baquerizo et al, 2016), deciphering the interplay between aboveground tree diversity and belowground communities and their functional role is of paramount importance (Akira et al, 2016;Guerra et al, 2020;Miura et al, 2015).…”

SoilTemp: A global database of near‐surface temperature

“…(d) Time span covered by each sensor in the database, ranked by starting date. Data showed from 1992 onwards, note that the time period covered by four loggers with starting dates in 1976 is truncated data (Cameron et al, 2018;Guerra et al, 2019), and we hope to build a truly global network representing-and actively engagingscientists from a wide diversity of cultural backgrounds (Maestre & Eisenhauer, 2019…”