Blind spots in global soil biodiversity and ecosystem function research.

ABSTRACT: Soils harbor a substantial fraction of the world's biodiversity, contributing to many crucial ecosystem functions. It is thus essential to identify general macroecological patterns related to the distribution and functioning of soil organisms to support their conservation and consideration by governance. These macroecological analyses need to represent the diversity of environmental conditions that can be found worldwide. Here we identify and characterize existing environmental gaps in soil taxa and ecosystem functioning data across soil macroecological studies and 17,186 sampling sites across the globe. These data gaps include important spatial, environmental, taxonomic, and functional gaps, and an almost complete absence of temporally explicit data. We also identify the limitations of so

SUBMITTER: Guerra CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7400591 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature