sOilFauna project: How human activities impact soil macrofauna communities and how it relates to primary productivity?

by Dr. Jérome Mathieu, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France &

Dr. Nico Eisenhauer, sDiv, Leipzig, Germany

Understanding the variations of ecosystem functioning and primary productivity across environmental gradients is necessary to anticipate the effects of global change on nature. The effects of human activity on soil macrofauna communities, and how these effects vary across localities is a critical but overlooked aspect of the problem. Indeed soil macrofauna communities underpin numerous ecosystem functions, including primary productivity, through their action on soil and nutrient recycling. The lack of a database on both soil macrofauna communities and ecosystem functioning at a large scale impeded so far the identification of general trends that could help us understand the links between soil macrofauna communities and primary productivity across environmental conditions.

In the project sOilFauna, we will synthesize for the first time the links between human activity, soil macrofauna communities, and primary productivity and how they depend on large-scale gradients such as climate. We are building a comprehensive database the - MACROFAUNA database -, which collates abundance data of 17 soil invertebrate groups produced across the world (Figure 1) with a standardized method. We will address three overarching questions:

1) How are soil macrofauna communities and their diversity organized around the globe?

2) What are the effects of the key agricultural practices and land management on soil macrofauna communities across climates?

3) What are the links between soil macrofauna communities and primary productivity?

Figure 1. a. Location of samples in the sOilFauna Database. b. Characterization of climates of these locations.

The first workshop of the sOilFauna project was held in iDiv – Germany, in May 2022. We designed working hypotheses that could be addressed with the database. We also identified gaps in data and discussed opportunities to invite new collaborators that could join our effort, fill these gaps, and participate in the synthesis. The precise hypothesis and collaboration guidelines for potential contributors are presented in a workshop report published in the journal Soil Organisms (Mathieu & al, 2002). Future collaborators can also refer to the website of the consortium: http://www.globalsoilmacrofauna.com/ and contact the project leaders. The project sOilFauna is funded by sDiv (Leipzig, Germany) from 2022 to 2024.

Reference:

Mathieu, J., Antunes, A. C., Barot, S., Bonato Asato, A. E. ., Bartz, M. L. C. ., Brown, G. G., Calderon-Sanou, I., Decaëns, T., Fonte, S. J., Ganault, P., Gauzens, B., Gongalsky, K. B., Guerra, C. A., Hengl, T., Lavelle, P., Marichal, R., Mehring, H., Peña-Venegas, C. P., Castro, D., Potapov, A., Thébault, E., Thuiller, W., Witjes, M., Zhang, C., & Eisenhauer, N. (2022). sOilFauna - a global synthesis effort on the drivers of soil macrofauna communities and functioning: Workshop Report . Soil Organisms, 94(2), 111–126. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25674/so94iss2id282