Blind spots in global soil biodiversity and ecosystem function research

Carlos A Guerra,Jörg Overmann,Kirsten Küsel,François Buscot,Léa Beaumelle,Helen R P Phillips,Antonis Chatzinotas,Tine Grebenc,César Marín ,Don A Cowan ,Anna Heintz‐Buschart ,Tesfaye Wubet,Manuel Delgado‐Baquerizo ,Matthias C Rillig,Guillaume Patoine,Erin K Cameron,Simone Cesarz,Johannes Sikorski,Nathaly R Guerrero‐Ramírez ,Marten Winter,Fernando T Maestre,Richard D Bardgett,Alberto Orgiazzi,Diana H Wall,Brajesh K Singh,Nico Eisenhauer

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-17688-2

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 consideration by governance. These macroecological analyses need to represent the diversity of environmental conditions that can be found worldwide. Here we identify and characterize existing environmental gaps in soil taxa and ecosystem functioning data across soil macroecological studies and 17,186 sampling sites across the globe. These data gaps include important 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 0.3% of all sampling sites having both information about biodiversity and function, although with different taxonomic groups and functions at each site. Based on this information, we provide clear priorities to support and expand soil macroecological research.

Highlights

Soils harbor a substantial fraction of the world’s biodiversity, contributing to many crucial ecosystem functions
With few exceptions[9,12], global soil biodiversityecosystem function relationships have not yet been studied in depth in macroecological perspectives and evaluations of patterns and causal mechanisms that link soil biodiversity to soil ecosystem functions have only emerged in the last decade[10,13,14,15]
Albeit with important limitations[16], there is a plethora of studies describing the global distribution and temporal patterns of aboveground biodiversity[17], ecosystems[18], and biodiversityecosystem function relationships[12,19,20,21,22,23], something that is currently mostly absent in soil macroecological studies due to the lack of temporally explicit data for soil biodiversity and soil-related functions

Summary

Introduction

Soils harbor a substantial fraction of the world’s biodiversity, contributing to many crucial ecosystem functions. We identify the limitations of soil macroecological studies to explore general patterns in soil biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships, with only 0.3% of all sampling sites having both information about biodiversity and function, with different taxonomic groups and functions at each site Based on this information, we provide clear priorities to support and expand soil macroecological research. Almost nothing is known about temporal patterns in soil biodiversity at larger spatial scales and across ecosystem types[25] Identifying and filling these gaps on soil taxa distributions and functions is pivotal to identify the ecological preferences of multiple soil taxa, assess their vulnerabilities to global change, and understand the causal links between soil biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and associated ecosystem services[16,29]. This has resulted in a lack of inclusion of soil biodiversity and functions in land management and conservation debates, and environmental policy[30]

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