Challenges of and opportunities for protecting European soil biodiversity

Soil biodiversity and related ecosystem functions are neglected in most biodiversity assessments and nature conservation actions. Through an overview of how society, and particularly policy-makers, have addressed these aspects in the past, we here show that the protection and nature conservation targeting of soil biodiversity has been insufficient. First, soil-related policies are unenforceable and miss soil nature conservation goals, but rather narrowly focus on other environmental objectives. Second, we found no evidence for positive effects of current nature conservation measures on multiple soil ecosystem functions in Europe. Third, we explored the role of soils in nature conservation management by using German management plans as an example, and found soils to be considered from a limited perspective only. By exploring these three dimensions (i.e., policy, evidence, management), we are able to highlight potential ways forward to improve nature conservation as a central instrument for soil biodiversity protection.

ZEISS Romy;  EISENHAUER Nico;  ORGIAZZI Alberto;  RILLIG Matthias C.;  BUSCOT Francois;  JONES Arwyn;  LEHMANN Anika;  REITZ Thomas;  SMITH Linnea;  GUERRA Carlos; 

2023-03-13

WILEY

JRC126632

0888-8892 (online),   

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.13930,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC126632,   

10.1111/cobi.13930 (online),