Soils host the largest reservoir of biodiversity on Earth, sustaining an intricate food web that spans from viruses and microbes to protists, nematodes, microarthropods, and other soil fauna. Together, these organisms regulate several soil functions with direct consequences for plant, animal, and human health. However, soil biodiversity remains comparatively understudied relative to aboveground biodiversity, and important taxonomic, spatial, and temporal gaps still limit our capacity to understand and predict how soil communities respond to global change.
In recent years, soil biodiversity has risen rapidly on both the scientific and political agenda, reflected in a surge of high-impact publications and in policy developments such as the EU Soil Monitoring Law. At the same time, soil biodiversity faces mounting pressures from land-use intensification, climate change, conventional agricultural management, and the spread of emerging pollutants and other anthropogenic contaminants.
This session aims to bring together researchers working across the full spectrum of soil biodiversity research, from fundamental ecology to applied and methodological innovation. We welcome contributions addressing (but not limited to):
- Patterns, drivers, and dynamics of soil biodiversity across different taxa and across spatial and temporal scales, including responses to climate and land-use changes.
- Impacts of agricultural practices (i.e., tillage, fertilization, etc) on soil biota and soil health, including the transition towards sustainable, solar energy, regenerative, and smart agricultural management.
- Effects of metals and emerging pollutants (microplastics, antibiotics, pesticides, PFAS, etc) on soil organisms and ecosystem functioning.
- Soil biodiversity–ecosystem functions relationships.
- Novel methodological and technological approaches for characterising soil biodiversity, including molecular/genomic tools, automated/high-throughput organism identification, remote sensing and UAV-based approaches, machine learning or integrative modelling frameworks.
- Smart and precision agriculture approaches that integrate soil biodiversity monitoring into decision-making for sustainable land management.
- Soil biodiversity as a nature-based solution for restoration, climate mitigation, and sustainable land management. Also, their link with policy, monitoring frameworks, and soil health indicators.