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Global gaps in soil biodiversity data

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 1042–1043 (2018)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Soil biodiversity represents a major terrestrial biodiversity pool, supports key ecosystem services and is under pressure from human activities1. Yet soil biodiversity has been neglected from many global biodiversity assessments and policies. This omission is undoubtedly related to the paucity of comprehensive information on soil biodiversity, particularly on larger spatial scales. Information on belowground species distributions, population trends, endemism and threats to belowground diversity is important for conservation prioritization, but is practically non-existent. As a consequence, much of our understanding of global macroecological patterns in biodiversity, as well as mapping of global biodiversity hotspots, has been based on aboveground taxa (such as plants2) and has not considered the functionally vital, but less visible, biodiversity found in soil.

Soil ecologists are increasingly conducting their own large-scale assessments (such as the African Soil Microbiology Project8) and additional databases on soil biodiversity are beginning to be developed9, in part through the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative. However, increased efforts to fill these gaps and to compile additional global datasets on other soil taxa (for example, mesofauna) are needed to allow more detailed analyses of soil biodiversity on broad spatial scales. Of major concern is the lack of a global consensus on sampling strategies and methodological approaches to assess soil biodiversity, which in many cases makes it challenging to compare datasets directly. Furthermore, greater cooperation with conservation biologists and policymakers is needed to better integrate soil biodiversity into global policies. For instance, soil biodiversity should be more explicitly considered in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework10 that will follow the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 and in future assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services11.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all contributors to the macrofauna database, especially E. Lapied, G. Brown and C. Fragoso. We thank M. Cabeza for helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript. We acknowledge support by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig (funded by the German Research Foundation, FZT 118), the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant 677232, ECOWORM), the Academy of Finland (285882), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (postdoctoral fellowship to E.K.C.). C.A.G. is supported by the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement no. 641762-ECOPOTENTIAL.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Erin K. Cameron

  2. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Erin K. Cameron, Inês S. Martins, Felix Gottschall, Carlos A. Guerra, Jes Hines, Guillaume Patoine, Julia Siebert, Marten Winter, Simone Cesarz, Olga Ferlian, Henrique M. Pereira, Helen R. P. Phillips, Josef Settele & Nico Eisenhauer

  3. Institute of Biology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany

    Inês S. Martins, Carlos A. Guerra & Henrique M. Pereira

  4. UPMC Université Paris 06, iEES Paris, Paris, France

    Patrick Lavelle

  5. IRD, iEES Paris, Centre IRD Ile de France, Paris, France

    Patrick Lavelle

  6. Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), TSBF_LAC, Cali, Colombia

    Patrick Lavelle

  7. Sorbonne Universitiés, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, IRD, CNRS, INRA, UPEC, University Paris Diderot, Paris, France

    Jérôme Mathieu

  8. Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, iEES Paris, Paris, France

    Jérôme Mathieu

  9. Natural History Museum, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Leho Tedersoo

  10. Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

    Felix Gottschall, Jes Hines, Julia Siebert, Simone Cesarz, Olga Ferlian, Helen R. P. Phillips & Nico Eisenhauer

  11. Center for Environmental Research and Technology, General and Theoretical Ecology, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Guillaume Patoine

  12. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo & Noah Fierer

  13. Departamento de Biología y Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Calle Tulipán Sin Número, Móstoles, Spain

    Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo

  14. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Noah Fierer

  15. Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Holger Kreft

  16. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Thomas E. Lovejoy

  17. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Sustainable Resources Directorate, Land Resources Unit, Ispra, Italy

    Luca Montanarella & Alberto Orgiazzi

  18. Infraestruturas de Portugal Biodiversity Chair, CiBiO/InBIO, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal

    Henrique M. Pereira

  19. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Department of Community Ecology, Halle, Germany

    Josef Settele

  20. Institute of Biological Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines

    Josef Settele

  21. Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Diana H. Wall

  22. School of Global Environmental Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Diana H. Wall

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  1. Erin K. Cameron
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Correspondence to Erin K. Cameron.

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Cameron, E.K., Martins, I.S., Lavelle, P. et al. Global gaps in soil biodiversity data. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 1042–1043 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0573-8

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