Soil contamination in nearby natural areas mirrors that in urban greenspaces worldwide

Soil contamination is one of the main threats to ecosystem health and sustainability. Yet little is known about the extent to which soil contaminants differ between urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems. Here we show that urban greenspaces and adjacent natural areas (i.e., natural/semi-natural ecosystems) shared similar levels of multiple soil contaminants (metal(loid)s, pesticides, microplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes) across the globe. We reveal that human influence explained many forms of soil contamination worldwide. Socio-economic factors were integral to explaining the occurrence of soil contaminants worldwide. We further show that increased levels of multiple soil contaminants were linked with changes in microbial traits including genes associated with environmental stress resistance, nutrient cycling, and pathogenesis. Taken together, our work demonstrates that human-driven soil contamination in nearby natural areas mirrors that in urban greenspaces globally, and highlights that soil contaminants have the potential to cause dire consequences for ecosystem sustainability and human wellbeing

The global contribution of soil mosses to ecosystem services

Soil mosses are among the most widely distributed organisms on land. Experiments and observations suggest that they contribute to terrestrial soil biodiversity and function, yet their ecological contribution to soil has never been assessed globally under natural conditions. Here we conducted the most comprehensive global standardized field study to quantify how soil mosses influence 8 ecosystem services associated with 24 soil biodiversity and functional attributes across wide environmental gradients from all continents. We found that soil mosses are associated with greater carbon sequestration, pool sizes for key nutrients and organic matter decomposition rates but a lower proportion of soil-borne plant pathogens than unvegetated soils. Mosses are especially important for supporting multiple ecosystem services where vascular-plant cover is low. Globally, soil mosses potentially support 6.43 Gt more carbon in the soil layer than do bare soils. The amount of soil carbon associated with mosses is up to six times the annual global carbon emissions from any altered land use globally. The largest positive contribution of mosses to soils occurs under a high cover of mat and turf mosses, in less-productive ecosystems and on sandy and salty soils. Our results highlight the contribution of mosses to soil life and functions and the need to conserve these important organisms to support healthy soils.The study work associated with this paper was funded by a Large Research Grant from the British Ecological Society (no. LRB17\1019; MUSGONET). D.J.E. is supported by the Hermon Slade Foundation. M.D.-B. was supported by a Ramón y Cajal grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RYC2018-025483-I), a project from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i (PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033a) and a project PAIDI 2020 from the Junta de Andalucía (P20_00879). E.G. is supported by the European Research Council grant agreement 647038 (BIODESERT). M.B. is supported by a Ramón y Cajal grant from Spanish Ministry of Science (RYC2021-031797-I). A.d.l.R is supported by the AEI project PID2019-105469RB-C22. L.W. and Jianyong Wang are supported by the Program for Introducing Talents to Universities (B16011) and the Ministry of Education Innovation Team Development Plan (2013-373). The contributions of T.G. and T.U.N. were supported by the Research Program in Forest Biology, Ecology and Technology (P4-0107) and the research projects J4-3098 and J4-4547 of the Slovenian Research Agency. The contribution of P.B.R. was supported by the NSF Biological Integration Institutes grant DBI-2021898. J. Durán and A. Rodríguez acknowledge support from the FCT (2020.03670.CEECIND and SFRH/BDP/108913/2015, respectively), as well as from the MCTES, FSE, UE and the CFE (UIDB/04004/2021) research unit financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC)

Urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil ecosystem services

9 páginas.- 5 figuras.- 53 referencias.- Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-024-00154-zGreenspaces are important for sustaining healthy urban environments and their human populations. Yet their capacity to support multiple ecosystem services simultaneously (multiservices) compared with nearby natural ecosystems remains virtually unknown. We conducted a global field survey in 56 urban areas to investigate the influence of urban greenspaces on 23 soil and plant attributes and compared them with nearby natural environments. We show that, in general, urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil multiservices, with only six of 23 attributes (available phosphorus, water holding capacity, water respiration, plant cover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and arachnid richness) significantly greater in greenspaces, and one (available ammonium) greater in natural areas. Further analyses showed that, although natural areas and urban greenspaces delivered a similar number of services at low (>25% threshold) and moderate (>50%) levels of functioning, natural systems supported significantly more functions at high (>75%) levels of functioning. Management practices (mowing) played an important role in explaining urban ecosystem services, but there were no effects of fertilisation or irrigation. Some services declined with increasing site size, for both greenspaces and natural areas. Our work highlights the fact that urban greenspaces are more similar to natural environments than previously reported and underscores the importance of managing urban greenspaces not only for their social and recreational values, but for supporting multiple ecosystem services on which soils and human well-being depends.We thank the researchers involved in the MUSGONET project for collection of field data and soil samples. This study was supported by a 2019 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation (URBANFUN), and by the BES grant agreement No LRB17\1019 (MUSGONET). M.D-B. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. M.D-B. is also supported by a project of the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and the Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014−2020 Objetivo temático “01 - Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación”) associated with the research project P20_00879 (ANDABIOMA). D.J.E. is supported by the Hermon Slade Foundation (HSF21040). H.C. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32101335), and The Young Science and Technology Talent Support Project of Jilin Province (QT202226), J.D. is supported by Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by BAST (No. BYESS2023456) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and M.B. by a Ramón y Cajal grant (RYC2021-031797-I) from Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. F.A. acknowledges support from FONDECYT 1220358 and C.P. support from the EU’s H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101000224. A.R. acknowledges support from the FCT (SFRH/BDP/108913/2015), the MCTES, FSE, UE, and the CFE (UIDB/04004/2021) research unit financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC). S.A. thanks the ANID/FONDECYT 1170995 and the ANID ACT 192027. T.P.M. acknowledges funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (UID 118981). T.G. and T.U.N. were supported by the research projects J4-3098 and J4-4547, and by the Research Program in Forest Biology, Ecology, and Technology (P4-0107) of the Slovenian Research Agency. J.P.V. thanks the SERB (EEQ/2021/001083, SIR/2022/000626), DST (DST/INT/SL/P-31/2021) and Banaras Hindu University, IoE (6031) incentives grant for providing support for Phytomicrobiome and soil microbiome research. L.W. and J.W. were supported by the Program for Introducing Talents to Universities (B16011), and the Ministry of Education Innovation Team Development Plan (2013-373).Peer reviewe

Biogenic factors explain soil carbon in paired urban and natural ecosystems worldwide

DATA AVAILABILITY : The raw data associated with this study are available in https://figshare.com/s/1eadef6619e74a8f2904 (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21025615).Urban greenspaces support multiple nature-based services, many of which depend on the amount of soil carbon (C). Yet, the environmental drivers of soil C and its sensitivity to warming are still poorly understood globally. Here we use soil samples from 56 paired urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems worldwide and combine soil C concentration and size fractionation measures with metagenomics and warming incubations. We show that surface soils in urban and natural ecosystems sustain similar C concentrations that follow comparable negative relationships with temperature. Plant productivity’s contribution to explaining soil C was higher in natural ecosystems, while in urban ecosystems, the soil microbial biomass had the greatest explanatory power. Moreover, the soil microbiome supported a faster C mineralization rate with experimental warming in urban greenspaces compared with natural ecosystems. Consequently, urban management strategies should consider the soil microbiome to maintain soil C and related ecosystem services.This study was supported by a 2019 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation (URBANFUN), and by BES Grant. Unión Europea NextGeneration; the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; a project of the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and the Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 Objetivo temático ‘01 - Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación’); the Hermon Slade Foundation; the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB); the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India; Banaras Hindu Univeristy; the FCT; the MCTES, FSE, UE and the CFE research unit financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC).https://www.nature.com/nclimatehj2024BiochemistryGeneticsMicrobiology and Plant PathologySDG-15:Life on lan

Biogenic factors explain soil carbon in paired urban and natural ecosystems worldwide

12 páginas.- 4 figuras.- 49 referencia.- Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01646-z .- Full-text access to a view-only version (Acceso a texto completo de sólo lectura en este enlace) https://rdcu.be/c8vZiUrban greenspaces support multiple nature-based services, many of which depend on the amount of soil carbon (C). Yet, the environmental drivers of soil C and its sensitivity to warming are still poorly understood globally. Here we use soil samples from 56 paired urban greenspaces and natural ecosystems worldwide and combine soil C concentration and size fractionation measures with metagenomics and warming incubations. We show that surface soils in urban and natural ecosystems sustain similar C concentrations that follow comparable negative relationships with temperature. Plant productivity’s contribution to explaining soil C was higher in natural ecosystems, while in urban ecosystems, the soil microbial biomass had the greatest explanatory power. Moreover, the soil microbiome supported a faster C mineralization rate with experimental warming in urban greenspaces compared with natural ecosystems. Consequently, urban management strategies should consider the soil microbiome to maintain soil C and related ecosystem services.This study was supported by a 2019 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation (URBANFUN), and by BES Grant Agreement No. LRB17\1019 (MUSGONET). M.D-B., P.G-P., J.D. and A.R. acknowledge support from TED2021-130908B-C41/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ Unión Europea NextGenerationEU/PRTR. M.D.-B. also acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. M.D.-B. was also supported by a project of the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and the Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 Objetivo temático ‘01 - Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación’) associated with the research project P20_00879 (ANDABIOMA). D.J.E. was supported by the Hermon Slade Foundation. J.P.V. thanks the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) (EEQ/2021/001083, SIR/2022/000626) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India (DST/INT/SL/P-31/2021) and Banaras Hindu Univeristy-IoE (6031)-incentive grant for financial assistance for research in plant-microbe interaction and soil microbiome. J.D. and A. Rodríguez acknowledge support from the FCT (2020.03670.CEECIND and SFRH/BDP/108913/2015, respectively), as well as from the MCTES, FSE, UE and the CFE (UIDB/04004/2021) research unit financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC).Peer reviewe

Global hotspots for soil nature conservation

19 páginas.- 5 figuras.- 98 referencias.- Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05292-xSoils are the foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems1. However, unlike for plants and animals, a global assessment of hotspots for soil nature conservation is still lacking2. This hampers our ability to establish nature conservation priorities for the multiple dimensions that support the soil system: from soil biodiversity to ecosystem services. Here, to identify global hotspots for soil nature conservation, we performed a global field survey that includes observations of biodiversity (archaea, bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) and functions (critical for six ecosystem services) in 615 composite samples of topsoil from a standardized survey in all continents. We found that each of the different ecological dimensions of soils—that is, species richness (alpha diversity, measured as amplicon sequence variants), community dissimilarity and ecosystem services—peaked in contrasting regions of the planet, and were associated with different environmental factors. Temperate ecosystems showed the highest species richness, whereas community dissimilarity peaked in the tropics, and colder high-latitudinal ecosystems were identified as hotspots of ecosystem services. These findings highlight the complexities that are involved in simultaneously protecting multiple ecological dimensions of soil. We further show that most of these hotspots are not adequately covered by protected areas (more than 70%), and are vulnerable in the context of several scenarios of global change. Our global estimation of priorities for soil nature conservation highlights the importance of accounting for the multidimensionality of soil biodiversity and ecosystem services to conserve soils for future generations.This project received funding from the British Ecological Society (agreement LRA17\1193; MUSGONET). C.A.G. and N.E. were funded by DFG–FZT 118, 202548816; C.A.G. was supported by FCT-PTDC/BIA-CBI/2340/2020; M.D.-B. was supported by RYC2018-025483-I, PID2020-115813RA-I00\MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and P20_00879. M.A.M.-M. and S.A. were funded by FONDECYT 1181034 and ANID-PIA-Anillo INACH ACT192057. J.D. and A.R. acknowledge support from IF/00950/2014, 2020.03670.CEECIND, SFRH/BDP/108913/2015 and UIDB/04004/2020. Y.-R.L. was supported by 2662019PY010 from the FRFCU. L.T. was supported by the ESF grant PRG632. F.B. and J.L.M. were supported by i-LINK+2018 (LINKA20069) funded by CSIC. C.T.-D. was supported by the Grupo de Biodibersidad & Cambio Global UBB–GI 170509/EF. C.P. was supported by the EU H2020 grant agreement 101000224. H.C. was supported by NSFC32101335, FRFCU2412021QD014 and CPSF2021M690589. J.P.V. was supported by DST (DST/INT/SL/P-31/2021) SERB (EEQ/2021/001083) and BHU-IoE (6031).Peer reviewe

Unearthing the soil‐borne microbiome of land plants

17 páginas.- 8 figuras.- referenciasPlant–soil biodiversity interactions are fundamental for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, the existence of a set of globally distributed topsoil microbial and small invertebrate organisms consistently associated with land plants (i.e., their consistent soil-borne microbiome), together with the environmental preferences and functional capabilities of these organisms, remains unknown. We conducted a standardized field survey under 150 species of land plants, including 58 species of bryophytes and 92 of vascular plants, across 124 locations from all continents. We found that, despite the immense biodiversity of soil organisms, the land plants evaluated only shared a small fraction (less than 1%) of all microbial and invertebrate taxa that were present across contrasting climatic and soil conditions and vegetation types. These consistent taxa were dominated by generalist decomposers and phagotrophs and their presence was positively correlated with the abundance of functional genes linked to mineralization. Finally, we showed that crossing environmental thresholds in aridity (aridity index of 0.65, i.e., the transition from mesic to dry ecosystems), soil pH (5.5; i.e., the transition from acidic to strongly acidic soils), and carbon (less than 2%, the lower limit of fertile soils) can result in drastic disruptions in the associations between land plants and soil organisms, with potential implications for the delivery of soil ecosystem processes under ongoing global environmental change.This study work associated with this manuscript was founded by a Large Research Grant from the British Ecological Society (No LRB17\1019; MUSGONET). M.D.-B. was supported from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the TED2021-130908B-C41 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR.” R.O.-H. was supported by the Ramón y Cajal program from the MICINN (RYC-2017 22032), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2019-106004RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, by the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) y la Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 Objetivo temático “01 - Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación”): P20_00323 (FUTUREVINES), and by the Fondo Europeo Agrícola de Desarrollo Rural (FEADER) through the “Ayudas a Grupos operativos de la Asociación Europea de Innovación (AEI) en materia de productividad y sostenibilidad agrícolas”, References: GOPC-CA-20-0001 (O.G. Suelos Vivos) and GO2022-01 (O.G. Viñas Vivas). TG and TUN were supported by the research project J4-1766 “Methodology approaches in genome-based diversity and ecological plasticity study of truffles from their natural distribution areas”, the Research Program in Forest Biology, Ecology and Technology (P4-0107), and a Young Researcher scheme (TUN) of the Slovenian Research Agency. J.L.B.-P. is supported by the EMERGIA programme of the Junta de Andalucía (EMC21_00207).Peer reviewe

Publisher Correction: Soil contamination in nearby natural areas mirrors that in urban greenspaces worldwide

Correction to: Nature Communications, published online 27 March 2023 In the version of this article originally published, the current affiliation 25, “CEAZA, Universidad Católica del Norte, Coquimbo, Chile,” initially appeared as the last affiliation, offsetting all author footnotes from 25-39. The affiliation order has been restored in the article.Peer reviewe

The global contribution of soil mosses to ecosystem services

DATA AVAILABILITY : All the materials, raw data, and protocols used in the article are available upon request. Data used in this study can be found in the Figshare data repository https://figshare.com/s/b152d06e53066d08b934 ref.Soil mosses are among the most widely distributed organisms on land. Experiments and observations suggest that they contribute to terrestrial soil biodiversity and function, yet their ecological contribution to soil has never been assessed globally under natural conditions. Here we conducted the most comprehensive global standardized field study to quantify how soil mosses influence 8 ecosystem services associated with 24 soil biodiversity and functional attributes across wide environmental gradients from all continents. We found that soil mosses are associated with greater carbon sequestration, pool sizes for key nutrients and organic matter decomposition rates but a lower proportion of soil-borne plant pathogens than unvegetated soils. Mosses are especially important for supporting multiple ecosystem services where vascular-plant cover is low. Globally, soil mosses potentially support 6.43 Gt more carbon in the soil layer than do bare soils. The amount of soil carbon associated with mosses is up to six times the annual global carbon emissions from any altered land use globally. The largest positive contribution of mosses to soils occurs under perennial, mat and turf mosses, in less-productive ecosystems and on sandy soils. Our results highlight the contribution of mosses to soil life and functions and the need to conserve these important organisms to support healthy soils.A Large Research Grant from the British Ecological Society; the Hermon Slade Foundation; a Ramón y Cajal grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; the Junta de Andalucía; the European Research Council; the AEI; the Program for Introducing Talents to Universities; the Ministry of Education Innovation Team Development Plan; the Research Program in Forest Biology, Ecology and Technology; the Slovenian Research Agency; the NSF Biological Integration Institutes; the FCT and FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC).http://www.nature.com/ngeo/hj2024BiochemistryGeneticsMicrobiology and Plant PathologySDG-15:Life on lan

Soil biodiversity supports the delivery of multiple ecosystem functions in urban greenspaces

While the contribution of biodiversity to supporting multiple ecosystem functions is well established in natural ecosystems, the relationship of the above- and below-ground diversity with ecosystem multifunctionality remains virtually unknown in urban greenspaces. Here we conducted a standardized survey of urban greenspaces from 56 municipalities across six continents, aiming to investigate the relationships of plant and soil biodiversity (diversity of bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates, and metagenomics-based functional diversity) with 18 surrogates of ecosystem functions from nine ecosystem services. We found that soil biodiversity across biomes was significantly and positively correlated with multiple dimensions of ecosystem functions, and contributed to key ecosystem services such as microbially driven carbon pools, organic matter decomposition, plant productivity, nutrient cycling, water regulation, plant–soil mutualism, plant pathogen control and antibiotic resistance regulation. Plant diversity only indirectly influenced multifunctionality in urban greenspaces via changes in soil conditions that were associated with soil biodiversity. These findings were maintained after controlling for climate, spatial context, soil properties, vegetation and management practices. This study provides solid evidence that conserving soil biodiversity in urban greenspaces is key to supporting multiple dimensions of ecosystem functioning, which is critical for the sustainability of urban ecosystems and human wellbeing.Fil: Fan, Kunkun. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de China. University Of Chinese Academy Of Sciences; ChinaFil: Chu, Haiyan. University Of Chinese Academy Of Sciences; China. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de ChinaFil: Eldridge, David J.. Unsw Sydney; AustraliaFil: Gaitán, Juan José. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Luján; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Liu, Yu Rong. Huazhong Agricultural University; ChinaFil: Sokoya, Blessing. State University of Colorado at Boulder; Estados UnidosFil: Wang, Jun Tao. Hawkesbury Institute For The Environment; AustraliaFil: Hu, Hang Wei. University of Melbourne; AustraliaFil: He, Ji Zheng. University of Melbourne; AustraliaFil: Sun, Wei. Northeast Normal University; ChinaFil: Cui, Haiying. Northeast Normal University; ChinaFil: Alfaro, Fernando D.. Universidad Mayor; ChileFil: Abades, Sebastian. Universidad Mayor; ChileFil: Bastida, Felipe. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Edafología y Biología Aplicada del Segura; EspañaFil: Díaz-López, Marta. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Edafología y Biología Aplicada del Segura; EspañaFil: Bamigboye, Adebola R.. Obafemi Awolowo University; NigeriaFil: Berdugo, Miguel. Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich; Suiza. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Blanco-Pastor, José L.. Universidad de Sevilla; EspañaFil: Grebenc, Tine. Slovenian Forestry Institute; EsloveniaFil: Duran, Jorge. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España. Universidad de Coimbra; PortugalFil: Illán, Javier G.. Washington State University; Estados UnidosFil: Makhalanyane, Thulani P.. University of Pretoria; SudáfricaFil: Mukherjee, Arpan. Banaras Hindu University; IndiaFil: Nahberger, Tina U.. Slovenian Forestry Institute; EsloveniaFil: Yang, Tianxue. Northeast Normal University; ChinaFil: Zhou, Xin Quan. Huazhong Agricultural University; ChinaFil: Zhou, Xiaobing. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de ChinaFil: Zaady, Eli. Agricultural Research Organization Of Israel; IsraelFil: Tedersoo, Leho. Tartu Ülikool; EstoniaFil: Delgado Baquerizo, Manuel. Universidad Pablo de Olavide; España. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; Españ