Soil biodiversity, biological indicators and soil ecosystem services—an overview of European approaches

By M. Pulleman, R. Creamer, Ute Hamer, J. Helder, C. Pelosi, G. Pérès, Michiel Rutgers. 2012

278 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Soil biota are essential for many soil processes and functions, yet there are increasing pressures on soil biodiversity and soil degradation remains a pertinent issue. The sustainable management of soils requires soil monitoring, including biological indicators, to be able to relate land use and management to soil functioning and ecosystem services. Since the 1990s, biological soil parameters have been assessed in an increasing number of field trials and monitoring programmes across Europe. The development and effective use of meaningful and widely applicable bio-indicators, however, continue to be challenging tasks. This paper aims to provide an overview of current knowledge on the characterization and assessment of soil biodiversity. Examples of biological soil indicators and monitoring approaches are presented. Furthermore the value of databases for developing a better understanding of the relationship between soil management, soil functions and ecosystem services is discussed. We conclude that integration of monitoring approaches and data sets offers good opportunities for advancing ecological theory as well as application of such knowledge by land managers and other decision makers.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Insect Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6836e1154bff699ac388e02bc9787ef29ea5ac44

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Citations in the corpus

Soil Degradation and Soil Quality in Western Europe: Current situation and future perspectives (2014, background): “integrated and operational set of indicators [70,74].”
Using metabarcoding to ask if easily collected soil and leaf-litter samples can be used as a general biodiversity indicator (2014, background): “Our study tested the hypothesis that metabarcoding will allow round-level samples to substitute for aboveground samples when haracterizing biodiversity patterns (Pulleman et al., 2012).”
Selecting cost effective and policy-relevant biological indicators for European monitoring of soil biodiversity and ecosystem function (2016, methodology): “Moreover, this need has been stimulated by the Convention 47 on Biological Diversity (http://www.cbd.int/), which includes a requirement for indicators capable of 48 monitoring changes in soil biodiversity (Pulleman et al., 2012).”
Earthworms as soil quality indicators in Brazilian no-tillage systems (2013, background): “In several European countries arthworms are already part of monitoring programs of soil quality Fründ et al., 2011; Pulleman et al., 2012).”
Plant growth-promoting bacteria as inoculants in agricultural soils (2015, background): “The sustainable management of soils requires soil monitoring, including biological indicators such as microbial communities, which provide many potentially interesting indicators for environmental monitoring in response to a range of stresses or disturbances (Pulleman et al., 2012).”
Soil food web properties explain ecosystem services across European land use systems (2013, background): “Finally, there is an urgent need to identify and evaluate indicators for soil-based ecosystem services (37).”
Soil “Ecosystem” Services and Natural Capital: Critical Appraisal of Research on Uncertain Ground (2016, background): “In the specific case of soils, various authors (e.g., Pimentel et al., 1997; Pulleman et al., 2012) have argued that there is a close link between the biodiversity of soils and their ability to deliver various functions or services.”
Soil carbon quality and nitrogen fertilization structure bacterial communities with predictable responses of major bacterial phyla (2014, background): “The prospect of using indicator organisms for soil status is tractable since they capture dynamic properties, and biological indicators have gained renewed interest (Pulleman et al., 2012; Ritz et al., 2009) not least because of the emerging European Soil Framework Directive.”