Enumerating soil biodiversity

Mark A. Anthony; S. Franz Bender; Marcel G.A. van der Heijden

doi:10.1073/pnas.2304663120

Enumerating soil biodiversity

Mark A. Anthony^*
, S. Franz Bender
, Marcel G.A. van der Heijden^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Agroscope
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
University of Zurich
extern

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Soil is an immense habitat for diverse organisms across the tree of life, but just how many organisms live in soil is surprisingly unknown. Previous efforts to enumerate soil biodiversity consider only certain types of organisms (e.g., animals) or report values for diverse groups without partitioning species that live in soil versus other habitats. Here, we reviewed the biodiversity literature to show that soil is likely home to 59 ± 15% of the species on Earth. We therefore estimate an approximately two times greater soil biodiversity than previous estimates, and we include representatives from the simplest (microbial) to most complex (mammals) organisms. Enchytraeidae have the greatest percentage of species in soil (98.6%), followed by fungi (90%), Plantae (85.5%), and Isoptera (84.2%). Our results demonstrate that soil is the most biodiverse singular habitat. By using this estimate of soil biodiversity, we can more accurately and quantitatively advocate for soil organismal conservation and restoration as a central goal of the Anthropocene.

Original language	English
Article number	e2304663120
Journal	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume	120
Issue number	33
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2304663120
Publication status	Published - 7 Aug 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

Funding

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This research was funded by grants from the Swiss NSF awarded to MA (PZ00P3_208648) and MvdH (310030-188799).A portion of data were produced by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (https:// ror.org/04xm1d337; operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231) in collaboration with the user community. We would also like to thank Stefan Geisen and Joanne Emerson for helpful feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript.We thank Michael Dandley (www.michaeldandley.com) for designing and illustrating the soil organisms shown in Fig. 3 and Elena Havlicek for discussion and exchange. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This research was funded by grants from the Swiss NSF awarded to MA (PZ00P3_208648) and MvdH (310030-188799). A portion of data were produced by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (https://ror.org/04xm1d337; operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231) in collaboration with the user community. We would also like to thank Stefan Geisen and Joanne Emerson for helpful feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript. We thank Michael Dandley (www.michaeldandley.com) for designing and illustrating the soil organisms shown in Fig. 3 and Elena Havlicek for discussion and exchange.

Funders	Funder number
Michael Dandley
US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute	DE-AC02-05CH11231
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung	310030-188799, PZ00P3_208648

Keywords

biodiversity
diversity
soil biodiversity
soil diversity

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pnas.2304663120Final published version, 1.79 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "Enumerating soil biodiversity",

abstract = "Soil is an immense habitat for diverse organisms across the tree of life, but just how many organisms live in soil is surprisingly unknown. Previous efforts to enumerate soil biodiversity consider only certain types of organisms (e.g., animals) or report values for diverse groups without partitioning species that live in soil versus other habitats. Here, we reviewed the biodiversity literature to show that soil is likely home to 59 ± 15\% of the species on Earth. We therefore estimate an approximately two times greater soil biodiversity than previous estimates, and we include representatives from the simplest (microbial) to most complex (mammals) organisms. Enchytraeidae have the greatest percentage of species in soil (98.6\%), followed by fungi (90\%), Plantae (85.5\%), and Isoptera (84.2\%). Our results demonstrate that soil is the most biodiverse singular habitat. By using this estimate of soil biodiversity, we can more accurately and quantitatively advocate for soil organismal conservation and restoration as a central goal of the Anthropocene.",

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Enumerating soil biodiversity

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

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