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Global monitoring of soil animal communities using a common methodology

Authors :
Anton M. Potapov
Xin Sun
Maria J. I. Briones
George G. Brown
Erin K. Cameron
Jérôme Cortet
Nico Eisenhauer
Saori Fujii
Stefan Geisen
Konstantin B. Gongalsky
Carlos Guerra
I.Tanya Handa
Charlene Janion-Scheepers
Zoë Lindo
Jérôme Mathieu
Maka Murvanidze
Uffe N Nielsen
Stefan Scheu
Olaf Schmidt
Clement Schneider
Julia Seeber
Jiri Tuma
Alexei V. Tiunov
Andrey S. Zaitsev
Diana H. Wall
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2022.

Abstract

SummaryHere we introduce the Soil BON Foodweb Team, a cross-continental collaborative network that aims to monitor soil animal communities and food webs using consistent methodology at a global scale. Soil animals support vital soil processes via soil structure modification, direct consumption of dead organic matter, and interactions with microbial and plant communities. Soil animal effects on ecosystem functions have been demonstrated by correlative analyses as well as in laboratory and field experiments, but these studies typically focus on selected animal groups or species at one or few sites with limited variation in environmental conditions. The lack of comprehensive harmonised large-scale soil animal community data including microfauna, mesofauna, and macrofauna, in conjunction with related soil functions, limits our understanding of biological interactions in soil communities and how these interactions affect ecosystem functioning. To provide such data, the Soil BON Foodweb Team invites researchers worldwide to use a common methodology to address six long-term goals: (1) to collect globally representative harmonised data on soil micro-, meso-, and macrofauna communities; (2) to describe key environmental drivers of soil animal communities and food webs; (3) to assess the efficiency of conservation approaches for the protection of soil animal communities; (4) to describe soil food webs and their association with soil functioning globally; (5) to establish a global research network for soil biodiversity monitoring and collaborative projects in related topics; (6) to reinforce local collaboration networks and expertise and support capacity building for soil animal research around the world. In this paper, we describe the vision of the global research network and the common sampling protocol to assess soil animal communities and advocate for the use of standard methodologies across observational and experimental soil animal studies. We will use this protocol to conduct soil animal assessments and reconstruct soil food webs on the sites included in the global soil biodiversity monitoring network, Soil BON, allowing us to assess linkages among soil biodiversity, vegetation, soil physico-chemical properties, and ecosystem functions. In the present paper, we call for researchers especially from countries and ecoregions that remain underrepresented in the majority of soil biodiversity assessments to join us. Together we will be able to provide science-based evidence to support soil biodiversity conservation and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems.

Details

Database :
OpenAIRE
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........e3d56052c66dbd22b09f5ed1c41e3ac5
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.11.475793