A statistical analysis of data from global surveys reveals that soils react to the number of stressors as well as to the individual stressor types. Moreover, the increasing number of stressors above a critical threshold reduces soil biodiversity and impedes the delivery of various ecosystem processes.
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References
Sage, R. Global change biology: a primer. Glob. Change Biol. 26, 3–30 (2020). A review article that presents the various factors that are driving global change.
Rillig, M. C., Ryo, M. & Lehmann, A. Classifying human influences on terrestrial ecosystems. Glob. Change Biol. 27, 2273–2278 (2021). This article presents an approach for classifying global change factors that affect terrestrial ecosystems and the soil.
Rillig, M. C. et al. The role of multiple global change factors in driving soil functions and microbial biodiversity. Science 366, 886–890 (2019). This paper uses a lab-based experiment to show that increasing the number of global change factors leads to progressively lower biodiversity and soil processes.
Yang, G. et al. Multiple anthropogenic pressures eliminate the effects of soil microbial diversity on ecosystem functions in experimental microcosms. Nat. Commun. 13, 4260 (2022). This paper reports that high soil biodiversity cannot protect soils from the effects of an increasing number of global change factors.
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This is a summary of: Rillig, M. C. et al. Increasing the number of stressors reduces soil ecosystem services worldwide. Nat. Clim. Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01627-2 (2023).
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Soils worldwide suffer from the combined effects of multiple global change factors. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 428–429 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01628-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01628-1
