Managing soil biodiversity and ecosystem services in agroecosystems across Europe under climate change (SOILCLIM)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Scheu
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Plant Cultivation, Plant Nutrition, Agricultural Technology
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 319296491

The project SOILCLIM will address the pressing need to better predict consequences of climate change on soil biodiversity and ecosystem services in agroecosystems over a European transect of climatic conditions and soil properties and under different long-term fertilization strategies. Together with the development of indicators that can act as an early warning system for a decline of the provision of soil ecosystem services in response to summer drought, the project will provide pivotal evidence of how to counteract negative consequences of climate change on agricultural production. Soil organisms are pivotal for the production of a range of ecosystem services, such as nutrient mineralization and decomposition of organic matter, that contribute to climate mitigation and food production in agroecosystems. The provision of soil ecosystem services in arable land partly depends on the intensity of agricultural management that influences soil biodiversity, but will in the future also be impacted by changing climatic conditions and their interactions with farming. The impact of altered precipitation patterns and soil carbon on soil biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions is on top of the list of eight major research gaps identified by an expert group at the European commission. Summer precipitation is projected to decline across Southern and major parts of Central Europe. Understanding how climate change affects relationships between soil biodiversity and processes across climatic gradients is therefore crucial to determine ecosystem-level responses at large spatial scales and to address threats to the provision of ecosystem services in agricultural soils.We will establish field experiments in Sweden, Germany and Spain that simulate summer droughts to improve our understanding of the links between soil biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions and services across large spatial scales. These links will be studied in combination with varying levels of soil organic carbon content in agricultural fields and by addressing the interaction with different long-term fertilization strategies. We will use established and innovative methods to develop indicator sets of declines in soil ecosystem service delivery and to predict fluctuations in soil biodiversity in agroecosystems in response to future climate change. We will test the suitability of community metrics that are based on trait information and functional diversity as alternative indicators of soil biodiversity and ecosystem service losses. The project will emphasize the active dialogue with farmers, farmer associations and advisors as an integrated part of the project and will facilitate knowledge exchange between scientific experts and end-users.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Estonia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
• Partner Organisation: Estonian Research Council (ETAG); Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO); Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF); Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA); The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS)
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Klaus Birkhofer; Dr. Jordi Moya-Laraño; Dr. Paul Mäder; Professor Dr. Jaak Truu