Affiliation:
1. Department of Sustainable Land Management and Soil Research Centre, School of Agriculture Policy and Development, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom
Abstract
A decline in soil biodiversity is generally considered to be the reduction of forms of life living in soils, both in terms of quantity and variety. Where soil biodiversity decline occurs, it can significantly affect the soils’ ability to function, respond to perturbations and recover from a disturbance. Several soil threats have been identified as having negative effects on soil biodiversity, including human intensive exploitation, land-use change and soil organic matter decline. In this review we consider what we mean by soil biodiversity, and why it is important to monitor. After a thorough review of the literature identified on a Web of Science search concerning threats to soil biodiversity (topic search: threat* “soil biodiversity”), we compiled a table of biodiversity threats considered in each paper including climate change, land use change, intensive human exploitation, decline in soil health or plastic; followed by detailed listings of threats studied. This we compared to a previously published expert assessment of threats to soil biodiversity. In addition, we identified emerging threats, particularly microplastics, in the 10 years following these knowledge based rankings. We found that many soil biodiversity studies do not focus on biodiversity sensu stricto, rather these studies examined either changes in abundance and/or diversity of individual groups of soil biota, instead of soil biodiversity as a whole, encompassing all levels of the soil food web. This highlights the complexity of soil biodiversity which is often impractical to assess in all but the largest studies. Published global scientific activity was only partially related to the threats identified by the expert panel assessment. The number of threats and the priority given to the threats (by number of publications) were quite different, indicating a disparity between research actions versus perceived threats. The lack of research effort in key areas of high priority in the threats to soil biodiversity are a concerning finding and requires some consideration and debate in the research community.
Funder
European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration
Subject
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine,General Neuroscience
Reference138 articles.
1. Microbiology of wind-eroded sediments: current knowledge and future research directions;Acosta-Martínez;Aeolian Research,2015
2. Linking soils to ecosystem services - a global review;Adhikari;Geoderma,2016
3. A review study on past 40 years of research on effects of tropospheric O3 on belowground structure, functioning, and processes of trees: a linkage with potential ecological implications;Agathokleous;Water, Air, and Soil Pollution,2016
4. Assessing soil biodiversity potentials in Europe;Aksoy;Science of the Total Environment,2017
5. Resistance, resilience, and redundancy in microbial communities;Allison;Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,2008
Cited by
60 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献