George Brown: Linking Soil Fauna Communities with Ecosystem Service Provisioning in Rural and Urban Environments

Assessing and valuing ecosystem services (ES) is a major challenge towards implementing payment for ES in rural and urban environments. Many soil organisms are important for soil health and ES delivery at both local and global scales, but these links remain poorly understood and rarely quantified. Healthy soils are needed for healthy environments and healthy plants, which provide better food for human health, thereby contributing to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s four “betters” (better production; better nutrition; better environment; better life). However, human activities can profoundly impact on soil fauna populations and consequently, on their capacity to contribute to soil functioning and health. By using large datasets on soil health and on soil macrofauna communities in a range of land use systems of varying intensity from two biodiversity hotspots (Atlantic Forest in Brazil and Mediterranean region of France) as case studies, we will better explore this biological frontier using foodweb models, biological traits, and pedotransfer functions, to quantify the role of these animals in ecosystem functioning and ES delivery. In particular, we will focus on five ES related to three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e., biological control of pests and pathogens, nutrient cycling (soil fertility) and plant productivity (SDG 2), water availability and quality (SDG 6), carbon sequestration and climate regulation (SDG 13). The challenges involved and the potential means to evaluate and value the contribution of soil animals to these ES and SDGs will be highlighted in this seminar.