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Soil Transformation of European Catchments (SoilTrEC)-‐ Project Fact Sheet (www.soiltec.eu)
Soil Biodiversity
Soil ecosystems are habitat for extreme species rich communities. By far the most important groups of organisms are the microbes (bacteria, fungi, archaea) both in terms of biomass as in (genetic) diversity. In addition, soil communities harbor a range of microbial grazers (protozoa, nematodes, insects, mites), omnivores (enchytraeids, earthworms) and predators (nematodes, insect, mites). Together, these organisms create complex networks of trophic interactions, forming the soil food web (Figure 1).
The functionality of Soil Biodiversity
The tremendous reservoir of soil biological diversity is pivotal for delivering food, fibre and biofuels, clean air, drinking water and carbon storage. Because of increased intensive land use, it is expected that this soil diversity will be affected with negative impacts on these soil ecosystem services. Considerable efforts by land-owners, policy-makers and scientists are directed towards optimizing land management for maximum functionality in terms of ecosystem services through sustaining the soil food-web governing this functionality.
Soil formation, land use and biodiversity
Figure 1. Food web diagram of the soil community as observed in Austrian farms near Vienna. Boxes represent groups, arrows represent feeding rates. Colours denote the primary energy source, i.e. brown: soil organic matter, red: bacteria, blue: fungi. Black arrows denote more than one energy source. Grey boxes denote groups that were found over all sites but were not present in the Austrian soils.
Labile Soil
organic matter
Stabile soil organic matter
Roots
Bacteria
Fungi
Flagellates
Enchytraeids
Herbofungivore Collembola
Amoebae
Omnivore nematodes
Nematovore mites
Omnivore mites
Predaceous mites
Diplura
Fungivore nematodes Fungivore mites
Herbivore Collembola Herbivore nematodes
Bacterivore nematodes
Bacterivore mites
Predaceous nematodes
Herbofungivore mites
Fungivore collembola
Fungi Amoebae Bacteria Fungivore Collembola Bacterivore
nematodes Predatory mites Fungivore
mites
Damma Fuchsenbigl Koiliaris Lysina 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Damma 1: 10 yr 2: 70 yr 3: 110 yr 4: 10.000 yr Fuchsenbigl 5: riverdune 6: wiesenfield 7: riverine forest 8: cropland 9: old forest Koiliaris 10: sea level 11: slope 12: 1000 m Lysina 13: Lysina 14: Pluniv Bor 15: Na Zelenem
CO2 emission (kg/ha/yr)
Fauna Microbes 5000
4000 3000 2000 1000
0
6000
Figure 2. Soil can store and emit large amounts of carbon. Carbon storage and CO2 emissions are the direct result of the trophic activity of the soil organisms. In this way, soil biodiversity plays a major role in the global cycling of carbon. Land use that promotes carbon storage can make a significant contribution to climate change mitigation.
Authors: Jeroen P. van Leeuwen, Daniel Moraetis, Jaap Bloem, Lia Hemerik, Taru Lehtinen, Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir, Guðrún Gísladótti, Jeffrey Newton, Georg Lair, Peter C. de Ruiter.
For more information visit SoilTrEC website: www.soiltrec.eu
Contact us: Prof. Steven Banwart, SoilTrEC Project Coordinator, University of Sheffield. Email: [email protected]
Soil biodiversity along soil formation To understand the diversity and structure of the soil communities, and how these relate to ecosystem functioning and services, it is important to analyse pathways of development of soil food web structure. SoilTrEC has studied soil food web development along gradients of soil formation created by retracting glaciers in Switzerland and Iceland.
The indicative value of soil biodiversity Because of its high functionality, soil biological properties have been studied for their indicative value for soil quality. Soil quality can refer to agricultural soil fertility, soil habitat suitability for species rich natural vegetation, land degradation and soil pollution.
Roots
Omnivorous nematodes
Flagellates Amoebae Bacterial Feeding
nematodes Fungi feeding
nematodes Root
Feeding nematodes Fungi Bacteria
Labile SOM Recalcitrant
SOM
Flagellates Amoebae
Fungi Bacteria
Labile SOM Recalcitrant
SOM
Flagellates Amoebae
Bacteria
Labile SOM Recalcitrant
SOM Roots
Omnivorous nematodes
Flagellates Amoebae Bacterial Feeding
nematodes
Fungi feeding
nematodes Root
Feeding nematodes Fungi Bacteria
Labile SOM Recalcitrant
SOM
Predatory nematodes
Stage 1 2 3 4
Figure 3. Retracting glaciers, like that of Skaftafell (Iceland), form excellent chronosequences to study the development of soil ecology during soil formation. This figure shows soil food web development for a period of 120 years.
Figure 4. The SoilTrEC sites with gradients of land degradation and the different agricultural farming confirmed micro-arthropod diversity as soil quality indicator.
Micro-‐arthropod Shannon diversity index
Micro-‐arthropod Taxa richness
Micro-‐arthropod Taxa richness
Degraded Intermediate Not degraded Coventional Organic Conventional Organic Koiliaris (Crete) Austria Iceland Austria Iceland
10
0
20
2
1
0
3
20
10
0
30
Coventional Organic Conventional Organic
