What is soil biodiversity?

I received an e-mail from a colleague working on the development of soil-related policies posing a “simple” question: how do you define soil biodiversity, is there a common definition? That makes me to think that, at the moment, the answer is “no”. Apparently being an easy demand, answers can be as diverse as soil biodiversity. Depending on interpretation, definitions of soil biodiversity can lead to completely different actions in terms of possible conservation initiatives. The issue is far from being trivial. As an example, about 3/4 of all wild bee species nest in the soil and spend much of their life cycle underground (Antoine and Forrest, 2021). Do we consider wild bees as soil biodiversity? Looking at the common sense, we do not. Bees are seen as flying pollinators and, as such, targeted by policy measures. Current preserving legislation targets flying stages of pollinators, not soil. However, if we consider wild bees as soil-living organisms, actions for protecting pollinator will also underpin soil organism conservation. However, putting soil biodiversity protection under the umbrella of other initiatives risks to be too reductive. Due to its biological and ecological nature, soil life requires ad-hoc measures (Cameron et al., 2018).

ORGIAZZI Alberto; 

2022-03-14

WILEY

JRC126012

1755-263X (online),   

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12845,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC126012,   

10.1111/conl.12845 (online),