Soil ecologists and conservationists should focus on raising people’s awareness of the essence of soil biodiversity: its complex ecologicalwebs and emergent ecosystemservices that support aboveground life and human well-being. Conservation and communication efforts regarding soil biodiversity must consider local-scale ecological contexts and different audiences. Engaging educational and outreach materials and methods should be prioritized to advance preservation of soil systems and their biodiversity

Byrne, Loren B

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Roger Williams University DOCS@RWU Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications Arts and Sciences 2022 The essence of soil biodiversity Loren B. Byrne Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/fcas_fp  Part of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, and the Environmental Studies Commons Received: 25 April 2022 Accepted: 14 May 2022DOI: 10.1111/conl.12900CORRESPONDENCEThe essence of soil biodiversityLoren B. ByrneDepartment of Biology, Marine Biologyand Environmental Science, RogerWilliams University, Bristol, Rhode IslandCorrespondenceLoren B. Byrne, Department of Biology,Marine Biology and EnvironmentalScience, One Old Ferry Road, RogerWilliams University, Bristol, RI 02809.Email: lbyrne@rwu.eduAbstractSoil ecologists and conservationists should focus on raising people’s awareness ofthe essence of soil biodiversity: its complex ecological webs and emergent ecosys-tem services that support aboveground life and human well-being. Conservationand communication efforts regarding soil biodiversity must consider local-scaleecological contexts and different audiences. Engaging educational and outreachmaterials and methods should be prioritized to advance preservation of soilsystems and their biodiversity.KEYWORDSconservation policy, ecosystem services, environmental education, soil biodiversity, soileducation, soil systemsSoils are complex ecosystems that provide homes for innu-merable species. Thus, describing “soil biodiversity” ischallenging and worthy of critical analysis, as highlightedby Orgiazzi (2022). However, I think he overempha-sized the definitional problem, which distracts from moreimportant discussions about communicating soil biodiver-sity’s essential meaning and relevance to conservationists,policymakers, and the public. Rather than pursue anunattainable goal of an “official and common definition,”we should focus on raising people’s awareness and carefor soil systems, which will have more direct impacts onconservation decisions.Soil ecologists know what soil biodiversity is: the fullspectrum of organisms inhabiting the soil matrix in allEarth’s biomes, including the genetic, morphological, andfunctional variation among populations and species, andtheir different combinations and ecological relationships.A holistic and flexible definition like this is amenable touse in a variety of conservation and social contexts acrossscales. Orgiazzi’s (2022) reference to such definitions as“vague” risks causing confusion and undermining scien-tists’ credibility and misses a main point: nonscientists areunlikely to care about nuanced differences among aca-This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal work is properly cited.© 2022 The Authors. Conservation Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.demic definitions. Instead they need to know why theyshould care about soil organisms and conserve them.For this, scientists should help people better appreciatethe “essence of soil biodiversity”: its complex ecologi-cal webs and emergent ecosystem services that supportaboveground life and human well-being.Orgiazzi (2022) wonders whether specific organismsare part of soil biodiversity based on how long theyinhabit the soil (e.g., soil-nesting bees). This question isnot unique to soils (many organisms need multiple habi-tats, e.g., dragonflies, penguins), and emphasizing suchdebatable details is tangential to motivating people to takeconservation action. If a species lives in the soil—evenbriefly—conservation plans must integrate soil to succeed.That is the main issue for conservationists and policy-makers, not whether such organisms are part of anyone’sdefinition of soil biodiversity.Further, conservation and communication effortsregarding soil biodiversity must consider local-scaleecological contexts. Some soil-dwelling organisms (e.g.,burrowing owls, caecilians) have restricted global rangesand are thus irrelevant to conservation in many places.In contrast, including species in the definition of soilConservation Letters. 2022;e412900. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/conl 1 of 2https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12900 1755263x, 0, Downloaded from https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12900 by Roger Williams University University Library, Wiley Online Library on [13/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License2 of 2 BYRNEbiodiversity does not mean that they are “good” to con-serve, such as nonnative earthworms that harm nativespecies (e.g., Gundale, 2002). This points to the valueof emphasizing broad, adaptable descriptions of soilbiodiversity, and generic “membership lists” (Table S1)that can be operationalized for specific management,policymaking, and educational goals. Focal soil organismsand their value for different stakeholder groups shiftacross time, places and sociocultural setting (e.g., foci forsoil restoration will differ between agricultural fields andurban landscapes; Setälä et al., 2014). Inasmuch as thescientific community should develop common definitionsfor soil biodiversity, they should be used as starting pointsfor crafting soil-conservation messages that are tailoredfor a given situation. For instance, different vocabularyshould be used for policymakers than for elementaryschool students. This contrasts with Orgiazzi’s (2022) hopefor a universal definition of soil biodiversity, which ignoresthe need for varied descriptions for diverse audiences.Rather than debating ever-more nuanced definitions ofsoil biodiversity, I suggest that ecologists and conservation-ists focus on creating engaging educational and outreachmaterials and methods to advance preservation of soilsystems and their biodiversity. This effort, referred to as“pedagogy for the pedosphere” (Byrne et al., 2016), iscritical for ensuring that soil life receives the policy andconservation attention it deserves (Parker, 2010). We knowenough about soil biodiversity to recognize that it is essen-tial for human health and well-being (Bach et al., 2020).This essence is what everyone around the world needsto understand for a future in which the amazing breadthof soil biodiversity is conserved from local through globalscales.DATA AVAILAB IL ITY STATEMENTData sharing is not applicable to this article as no new datawere created or analyzed in this study.ORCIDLorenB. Byrne https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3097-5960REFERENCESBach, E. M., Ramirez, K. S., Fraser, T. D., & Wall, D. H. (2020).Soil biodiversity integrates solutions for a sustainable future.Sustainability, 12, 2662. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072662Byrne, L. B., Thiet, R. K., & Chaudhary, V. B. (2016). Pedagogy for thepedosphere.Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14, 238–240.https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1286Gundale, M. J. (2002). Influence of exotic earthworms on the soilorganic horizon and the rare fern Botrychium mormo. Conserva-tionBiology, 16, 1555–1561. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-1739.2002.01229.xOrgiazzi, A. (2022). What is soil biodiversity?Conservation Letters, 15,e12845. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12845Parker, S. S. (2010). Buried treasure: Soil biodiversity and conserva-tion. Biodiversity and Conservation, 19, 3743–3756. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-010-9924-8Setälä, H., Bardgett, R. D., Birkhofer, K., Brady, M., Byrne, L., DeRuiter, P. C., De Vries, F. T., Gardi, C., Hedlund, K., Hemerik,L., Hotes, S., Liiri, M., Mortimer, S. R., Pavao-Zuckerman, M.,Pouyat, R., Tsiafouli, M.,. . .Van der Putten, W. H. (2014). Urbanand agricultural soils: Conflicts and trade-offs in the optimizationof ecosystem services. Urban Ecosystems, 17, 239–253. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-013-0311-6SUPPORT ING INFORMATIONAdditional supporting information can be found onlinein the Supporting Information section at the end of thisarticle.How to cite this article: Byrne, L. B. (2022). Theessence of soil biodiversity. Conservation Letters.e12900. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12900 1755263x, 0, Downloaded from https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12900 by Roger Williams University University Library, Wiley Online Library on [13/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License

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