GROUP 4

WANANGWA MUNTHALI
NEDSON GUNDO
IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL THREATS TO SOIL
BIODIVERSITY
• Authors
 Mark Tibbett
 Tandra D. Fraser
 Sarah Duddigan
Published on 12 june 2020
KEY POINTS

1. Soil biodiversity is generally defined as the variability of living organisms in soil and the ecological complexes of
which they are part
• Soils are a globally important reservoir of biodiversity, hosting at least one-quarter of all living organisms on the
planet
• Soil provides a variety of functions and services supporting life on the planet including the generation of biomass;
biogeochemical cycling; and regulation of water movement, climate and pollution
• soil biodiversity decline affect the soils’ ability to function, respond to perturbations and recover from a
disturbance.
2. threats to soil biodiversity include climate change, land use change, intensive human exploitation, decline in soil
health
• Identified emerging threats particularly microplastic
KEY POINTS

3. Many soil biodiversity studies do not focus on biodiversity strict, rather these studies examined
either changes in abundance and/or diversity of individual groups of soil biota, instead of soil
biodiversity as a whole
4.The lack of research effort in key areas of high priority in the threats to soil biodiversity are a
concerning finding and requires some consideration
THANK YOU