Global changes and their environmental stressors have a significant impact on soil biodiversity—A meta-analysis

Phillips, Helen R.P.; Cameron, Erin K.; Eisenhauer, Nico; Burton, Victoria J.; Ferlian, Olga; Jin, Yiming; Kanabar, Sahana; Malladi, Sandhya; Murphy, Rowan E.; Peter, Anne; Petrocelli, Isis; Ristok, Christian; Tyndall, Katharine; van der Putten, Wim; Beaumelle, Léa

Global changes and their environmental stressors have a significant impact on soil biodiversity—A meta-analysis

2024

Identifying the main threats to soil biodiversity is crucial as soils harbor ∼60% of global biodiversity. Many previous meta-analyses investigating the impact of different global changes (GCs) on biodiversity have omitted soil fauna or are limited by the GCs studied. We conducted a broad-scale meta-analysis focused on soil fauna communities, analyzing 3,161 effect sizes from 624 publications studying climate change, land-use intensification, pollution, nutrient enrichment, invasive species and habitat fragmentation. Land-use intensification resulted in large reductions in soil fauna communities, especially for the larger-bodied groups. Unexpectedly, pollution caused the largest negative impact on soil biodiversity - particularly worrying due to continually increasing levels of pollution and poor mechanistic understanding of impacts relative to other GCs. Not all GCs and stressors were detrimental; organic-based nutrient enrichment often resulted in positive responses. Including soil biodiversity in large-scale analyses is vital to fully understand the impact of GCs across the different realms.

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