Soil health increases primary productivity across Europe

Abstract

The role of soil biodiversity and soil health in regulating primary productivity across different land use types is still poorly understood, hindering our ability to predict the impact of soil degradation on essential ecosystem services such as food provision. To address this gap, we conducted a pan-European observational field study using data from 588 sites and 27 countries to investigate the linkages between soil microbial diversity, soil health, and primary productivity across three major land use types: woodlands, grasslands, and croplands. We demonstrate that a combination of climatic and edaphic factors, together with soil biodiversity parameters, explained between 20.76% and 31.20% of the variability in primary productivity across contrasting land use types. Our study further revealed a general positive effect of soil health (i.e., microbial biomass, soil nitrogen and carbon content, and microbial diversity) on primary productivity, particularly for croplands (R2= 0.16) and grasslands (R2= 0.18). The effects of soil microbial diversity depended on the microbial group and the land use type considered. In general, higher diversity of beneficial groups (e.g., Acidobacteria, Mortierellomycota) was linked to increased productivity, while the opposite was found for plant pathogens (particularly in croplands). Together, our results provide insights into the importance of soil biodiversity and soil health for maintaining essential ecosystem functions across contrasting land use types and highlight the need for land-use specific management strategies for preserving belowground diversity and primary productivity.