REVIEW: Archive and refugia of soil organisms: applying a pedodiversity framework for the conservation of biological and non‐biological heritages

Abstract

The pedosphere is a part of our natural heritage. Soils should be considered both for their biological and for their geological resources. 2. During the Anthropocene, human activities have dramatically changed the land surface and remodified soil cover, resulting in many natural pedotaxa being at risk of extinction. Recently, biogeographers and ecologists recognized that numerous biotaxa should be considered as edaphic endemisms, and as a consequence, in situ soil preservation is important relative to both its biological and geological value. 3. This contribution discusses the similarity and differences between biodiversity and pedodiversity and proposes using pedodiversity as a surrogate measure of above-ground biodiversity and an indicator of below-ground biodiversity. 4. Another objective is to explore the relevance of soil diversity to soil ecology by illustrating how the analysis of pedotaxa and their genetic soil horizons can be applied in conservation biology. To preserve biological and geological heritage inherent to the pedosphere, we propose to design a network of soil reserves. The proposed network could also be an efficient way to preserve soil characteristics and qualities of undisturbed soils that would become benchmarks for soil monitoring programs. 5. Synthesis and applications. The coincidence between patterns of biodiversity and pedodiversity offers a new and unexplored direction for understanding the genesis of biological and non-biological assemblages and the spatial patterns of soils and living organisms. Pedodiversity can be used as a practical surrogate indicator of soil diversity. We provide a pedodiversity framework for the design of a network of soil reserves for the preservation and monitoring of soil biodiversity. This new framework could contribute toward the development of a unified theory of natural diversity and to understanding the role of the pedosphere in the provision of ecosystem services.

Mid‐ and large‐scale geodiversity calculation in fuentes carrionas (nw spain) and serra do cadeado (paraná, brazil): methodology and application for land management

“…The result is a curve, which is compared with the most common models: geometric curves for areas with very little diversity, such as anthropized spaces; logarithmic curves for low diversity areas; lognormal curves for medium to high diversity areas and ‘broken stick’ curves, typical for biodiversity on recently colonized spaces (Ibáñez et al . ). Once more such curves will compute the total diversity of a territory, but not within this territory.…”

“…; Panizza ; Ibáñez et al . ). In Spain interest in geodiversity arose early, and it was embraced by several regional institutions (Durán et al .…”

“…Early geodiversity estimates centred on pedodiversity, such as Ibáñez et al . (, , ). These works settled the most important theoretical ideas for the calculation of geodiversity, which were, in fact, imported from biodiversity (Ibáñez and García‐Álvarez ).…”

Geodiversity, self-organization, and health of three-phase semi-arid rangeland ecosystems, in the Israeli Negev

“…Yet, this index could not be utilized for smaller-sized aerial units, and is not applicable for determining smaller-scale geodiversity (Cañadas and Flaño, 2007). Moreover, even though geodiversity studies generally consider soils, only rarely do they relate their specific features to geodiversity (Ibáñez et al, 2012), mainly focusing on the background data, such as geology and topography. In our study region, surface heterogeneity (or diversity) was previously suggested to be reflected through the sharpening of the hillslopes' micro-topographic (to a scale of several decimeters) step-like profile.…”

“…The concept of natural diversity encompasses two components: (1) the number of different types of objects (e.g., biological species and soil types) in a mixture or a sample, and (2) the relative size or number of each type of object, as well as its distribution among the other objects (Ibáñez et al, 2012). At the same time, two important concepts for the quantification of diversity are: (a) whether the specific groups are different enough to be considered separate types of objects, and (b) whether the objects in each specific group are similar enough to be considered the same type (Huston, 1994).…”