Monitoring microbial diversity in European soils: ongoing projects and challenges
Résumé
According to the Convention of Biological Diversity (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), biodiversity is the variation in life from genes to species, communities, ecosystems, and landscapes. Soils represent a huge reservoir of biodiversity which varies in terms of taxonomic richness, relative abundance and distribution according to soil types, climatic conditions, vegetation and land uses. The key functions supporting ecosystem services as identified in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005) largely depend upon organisms that inhabit the soil. Thus, the design and implementation of a sustainable soil management strategy requires a better knowledge of soil biodiversity. Against this background, SETAC 6th World Congress/SETAC Europe 22nd Annual Meeting 89 soil biodiversity is subject to various threats. The most serious are caused by anthropogenic activities which can impair soil biodiversity and functioning with negative consequences on ecosystem service delivery, with consequent effects on primary production and soil sustainability. Determining the range of biodiversity and its impact on soil functioning and ecosystem services is therefore a critical challenge which needs to be addressed. This talk will give a short overview, with a specific focus on microbial biodiversity, on national (France, The Netherlands, United Kingdom) and European (EcoFINDERS) initiatives which have been undertaken to assess variations of biodiversity at large spatial scales according to soil and climate types and land uses. The EcoFINDERS (Ecological Function and Biodiversity Indicators in European Soils) project supported by the European Commission was launched in order to gain information on soil biodiversity (including both microorganisms and fauna). This project will result (i) at the scientific level in increasing our knowledge of soil biodiversity and its role in ecosystem services across different soils, climate types and land uses, (ii) at the technological level in the standardization of methods and operating procedures for characterizing soil biodiversity and functioning, and the development of bioindicators, (iii) at the economic level in the assessment of the added value brought by cost-effective bioindicators, and of cost effectiveness of alternative ecosystem service maintenance policies. The management of such large sampling schemes requires the development of platforms allowing the extraction, storage and analysis of the DNA, such as the GenoSol platform (www2.dijon.inra.fr/plateforme_genosol/).