Chilean blind spots in soil biodiversity and ecosystem function research

Abstract

AbstractSoil harbour up to a quarter of the world's biodiversity, substantially contributing to many ecosystem functions and processes. It is significantly important to identify the distribution patterns of soil organisms and their ecosystem functions, to support their conservation efforts and to build policy around them. This has been recently analysed at macroecological scales, but analyses at national or local scales are scarce. Here, we identify and analyse the blind spots in soil taxa and ecosystem functions data in continental Chile. A Web of Science search (1945–2020) was conducted focusing on ten soil taxa and four ecosystem functions (nutrient cycling, decomposition, water infiltration and soil respiration). A total of 741 sampling sites were obtained from 239 articles: in 49.25% of these sites, soil biodiversity was studied alone, while this percentage was 32.65% for ecosystem functions. In 18.10% of the sites, both soil biodiversity and ecosystem functions were jointly studied, a surprisingly high percentage compared to global‐scale studies. By far, bacteria/fungi and nutrient cycling were the most investigated taxa and function, respectively. Several soil taxa (Acari, Collembola, Nematoda, Formicoidea, Protista, Rotifera) were represented by just a few sampling sites concentrated in specific Chilean regions. Places like the central region (Metropolitan and Valparaíso administrative Regions), the Atacama Desert (north of the country) and the Valdivian temperate forests (La Araucanía, Los Ríos and Los Lagos administrative Regions) present the majority of studies on soil Fungi, Bacteria and nutrient cycling, reflecting the historical interests of well‐established research groups. Based on this research, we are identifying the causes of the data blind spots and inviting the Chilean soil ecology community to propose ideas on how to fill them, especially targeting less studied soil taxa and ecosystem functions in neglected regions of Chile.