Frontiers in soil ecology—Insights from the World Biodiversity Forum 2022

Eisenhauer, Nico; Bender, Sophia; Calderón‐Sanou, Irene; Vries, Franciska T. de; Lembrechts, Jonas J.; Thuiller, Wilfried; Wall, Diana H.; Zeiss, Romy; Bahram, Mohammad; Beugnon, Rémy; Burton, Victoria J.; Crowther, Thomas W.; Delgado‐Baquerizo, Manuel; Geisen, Stefan; Kardol, Paul; Krashevska, Valentyna; Martínez‐Muñoz, Carlos A.; Patoine, Guillaume; Seeber, Julia; Soudzilovskaia, Nadejda A.; Steinwandter, Michael; Sünnemann, Marie; Sun, Xiaowen; Heijden, Marcel G. A. van der; Guerra, Carlos A.; Potapov, Anton

doi:10.1002/sae2.12031

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 173 publications

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“…Additionally, soil microorganisms are important in improving soil physicochemical properties such as soil aggregate stability, porosity, aeration and soil organic matter (SOM) (Costa et al, 2018; Rashid et al, 2016) that are key to healthy agroecosystems. Further, there is an increasing understanding of the importance that soil biodiversity plays in maintaining ecosystem functioning (Delgado‐Baquerizo et al, 2016, 2020) and its management could be used to build more resource efficient and resilient food systems (Eisenhauer et al, 2022; El Mujtar et al, 2019; Bender et al, 2016; Bommarco et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of biostimulant application on soil biological and physicochemical properties: A field study

Wadduwage,

Liu,

Egidi

et al. 2023

J of Sust Agri & Env

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IntroductionDespite their potential benefits, it is not well understood how the application of biostimulants influences soil biological properties and their microbial communities in field conditions. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the impacts of biostimulants on soil biological and physicochemical properties relevant to soil health.Materials and MethodsTo achieve this, we conducted a field study to investigate the effects of two types of commercially available biostimulants, Universal Natural Plant food (UNP) and Converte Seed Primer (CSP), on microbial activity, bacterial and fungal abundance, community structure and diversity, and soil chemical and physical properties across two depths (0–10 and 10–20 cm) from five sites under either wheat or pasture cultivation.ResultsOur findings suggest that application of UNP stimulated microbial activity by 40.1% in surface (0–10 cm) and 36.4% in deeper (10–20 cm) soil, but was dependant on site. Effects were generally greater in grasslands compared with arable soils. At sites where UNP stimulated microbial respiration, substrate‐induced respiration was also stimulated in surface soils and was associated with increased soil moisture content and higher total carbon and nitrogen. At the one site where UNP was combined with CSP, soil enzymes associated with carbon and nitrogen cycling were stimulated in UNP and UNP + CSP treatments. Total bacterial and fungal abundance and their alpha diversity did not respond to biostimulant treatment. However, microbial indicator communities were identified that responded positively to UNP and CSP addition across the two depths. Bacterial indicator species included Elsterales, Propionibacteriales, Solibacterales, Candatus, Reyranellales and Sphingomonadales, but differed between depths. For the fungal indicator species Filobasidiales (Basidiomycota) and Pleosporales (Ascomycota) were strong responders and common across both depths.ConclusionOverall, our results suggest some positive effects of biostimulants on soil biological and physicochemical properties. Further long‐term studies should be conducted to evaluate the effects of biostimulants on crop yield and farm resilience.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of biostimulant application on soil biological and physicochemical properties: A field study

Wadduwage,

Liu,

Egidi

et al. 2023

J of Sust Agri & Env

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“…Eisenhauer et al [31] identified better data management, including data standardisation and integration, as one of the prominent research frontiers in soil ecology. This requires data standards (from the less expressive controlled vocabularies to the more expressive ontologies) to aid data harmonisation and compilation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Soil Food Web Ontology: aligning trophic groups, processes, resources, and dietary traits to support food-web research

Guillarme

Hedde

Potapov

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Although soil ecology has benefited from recent advances in describing soil organism trophic traits, large scale reconstruction of soil food webs is still impeded by (1) the dissemination of most data about trophic interactions and diets into distributed, heterogeneous repositories, (2) no well-established terminology for describing feeding preferences, processes, and resource types, and (3) much heterogeneity in the classification of different soil groups, or absence of such classifications. Soil trophic ecology could therefore benefit from standardisation efforts. Here, we propose the Soil Food Web Ontology as a new formal framework for representing knowledge on trophic ecology of soil organisms. This ontology captures the semantics of trophic concepts, including consumer-resource interactions, feeding preferences and processes, and provides a formalisation of trophic group definitions. The ontology can be used to add semantic annotations to trophic data, thus facilitating the integration of heterogeneous datasets. It also provides lexical resources that can support the development of information extraction tools to facilitate literature-based datasets creation. Finally, it enables automatic and consistent classification of soil organisms based on their trophic relationships. We argue that, by harmonising the terminology and underlying concepts of soil trophic ecology, our ontology allows for better use of available information on the feeding habits of soil organisms and sounder classifications, thus facilitating the reconstruction of soil food webs and making food web research more accessible, reusable and reproducible.

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“…Compared to soil microbiota, data on soil fauna are scarce and often limited to ground-dwelling taxa (Burton et al, 2022). Soil fauna studies focusing on alpine and high-elevation habitats are especially rare.…”

Section: Key Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity in mountain soils above the treeline

Praeg,

Steinwandter,

Urbach

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Despite the importance of healthy soils for human livelihood, wellbeing, and safety, current gaps in our knowledge and understanding of biodiversity in soil are numerous, undermining conservation efforts. These gaps are particularly wide in mountain regions where healthy soils are especially important for human safety and yet evidence is accumulating of ongoing degradation, posing significant threats to ecosystem functioning and human settlements.To analyse these gaps in detail, we synthesise current research on the global diversity of microorganisms, cryptogams, and invertebrates in mountain soils above the treeline. This synthesis is based on a semi-quantitative survey of the literature and an expert-based analysis. Our work reveals not only deficiencies in geographic cover but also significant gaps in taxonomic coverage, particularly among soil protists and invertebrates, and a lack of (functional and ecological) description of the uncultivated majority of prokaryotes, fungi, and protists. We subsequently build on this overview to highlight opportunities for research on mountain soils as systems of co-occurring species that interact in complex environmental matrices to fulfil critical functions and make essential contributions to life on land.Closing gaps in biodiversity research in mountain soil is crucial to enhance our understanding and to promote laws and guidelines advancing international soil biodiversity conservation targets in mountains. Addressing sparse and biased data, recognizing the impact of environmental changes on mountain ecosystems, and advocating dedicated policies are essential strategies to safeguard mountain soils and their biodiversity.GLOSSARY

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Frontiers in soil ecology—Insights from the World Biodiversity Forum 2022

Cited by 20 publications

References 173 publications

Effects of biostimulant application on soil biological and physicochemical properties: A field study

Effects of biostimulant application on soil biological and physicochemical properties: A field study

The Soil Food Web Ontology: aligning trophic groups, processes, resources, and dietary traits to support food-web research

Biodiversity in mountain soils above the treeline

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