Global mismatches in aboveground and belowground biodiversity

• Published in: Conservation Biology
• Main Authors: Cameron, E.K., Martins, I.S., Lavelle, P., Mathieu, J., Tedersoo, L., Bahram, M., Gottschall, F., Guerra, C.A., Hines, J., Patoine, G., Siebert, J., Winter, M., Cesarz, S., Ferlian, O., Kreft, H., Lovejoy, T.E., Montanarella, L., Orgiazzi, A., Pereira, H.M., Phillips, H.R.P., Settele, Josef, Wall, D.H., Eisenhauer, N.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019
• Subjects: aboveground‐belowground; bacteria; fungi; global patterns; macrofauna; mismatch; policy; soil biodiversity; Tundra
• Online Access: https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=21681; https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13311

Human activities are accelerating global biodiversity change and have resulted in severely threatened ecosystem services. A large proportion of terrestrial biodiversity is harbored by soil, but soil biodiversity has been neglected from many global biodiversity assessments and conservation actions, and our understanding of global patterns of soil biodiversity remains limited. In particular, the extent to which hotspots and coldspots of aboveground and soil biodiversity overlap is not clear. We examined global patterns of overlap by mapping indices of aboveground (mammals, birds, amphibians, vascular plants) and soil (bacteria, fungi, macrofauna) biodiversity. Our analysis indicated that areas of mismatch between aboveground and soil biodiversity covered 27% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. The temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome had the highest proportion of grid cells with high aboveground biodiversity but low soil biodiversity, while the boreal and tundra biomes had higher soil biodiversity but low aboveground biodiversity. While more data on soil biodiversity is needed, both to cover geographic gaps and to include additional taxa, our results suggest that protecting aboveground biodiversity may not sufficiently reduce threats to soil biodiversity. Given the functional importance of soil biodiversity and the role of soils for human well‐being, soil biodiversity should be further considered in policy agendas and conservation actions by adapting management practices to sustain soil biodiversity and considering soil biodiversity when designing protected areas.