Global monitoring of soil animal communities using a common methodology

Abstract

Here we introduce the Soil BON Foodweb Team, a cross-continental collaborative network that aims to monitor soil animalcommunities and food webs using consistent methodology at a global scale. Soil animals support vital soil processes via soil structuremodification, consumption of dead organic matter, and interactions with microbial and plant communities. Soil animal effects onecosystem functions have been demonstrated by correlative analyses as well as in laboratory and field experiments, but these studiestypically focus on selected animal groups or species at one or few sites with limited variation in environmental conditions. The lack ofcomprehensive harmonised large-scale soil animal community data including microfauna, mesofauna, and macrofauna, in conjunctionwith related soil functions, microbial communities, and vegetation, limits our understanding of biological interactions in soil systemsand how these interactions affect ecosystem functioning. To provide such data, the Soil BON Foodweb Team invites researchersworldwide to use a common methodology to address six long-term goals: (1) to collect globally representative harmonised data on soilmicro-, 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 websand their association with soil functioning globally, (5) to establish a global research network for soil biodiversity monitoring andcollaborative projects in related topics, (6) to reinforce local collaboration networks and expertise and support capacity building forsoil animal research around the world. In this paper, we describe the vision of the global research network and the common samplingprotocol to assess soil animal communities and advocate for the use of standard methodologies across observational and experimentalsoil animal studies. We will use this protocol to conduct soil animal assessments and reconstruct soil food webs at sites associated withthe global soil biodiversity monitoring network, Soil BON, allowing us to assess linkages among soil biodiversity, vegetation, soilphysico-chemical properties, climate, and ecosystem functions. In the present paper, we call for researchers especially from countriesand ecoregions that remain underrepresented in the majority of soil biodiversity assessments to join us. Together we will be able toprovide science-based evidence to support soil biodiversity conservation and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems