BIOservicES: linking soil biodiversity with ecosystem functions and services

BIOservicES: linking soil biodiversity with ecosystem functions and services
BIOservicES is a new European Soil Mission project aiming to investigate the soil ecosystem functions and services provided by soil organisms across biogeographic areas and land uses with special attention to the impact of climate change. Nematode communities are among the selected organisms because nematodes are one of the most abundantly present in the soil and crucial for ecosystem functioning, participating in trophic levels within micro-food webs. Their roles in nutrient cycling, pest suppression, and microbial community regulation emphasize their significance. However, there is still a knowledge gap regarding their exact involvement in soil ecosystems. The BIOservicES project will explore the link between soil nematode communities, soil structure, and ecosystem functions from the field level to the landscape level. Pressures and drivers will be identified, and the impact of climate change on life stability and adaptation will be determined. Also, the economic valuation of the contribution of soil nematode communities to the ecosystem will be investigated. To do so, soil nematode communities from 25 locations across five European biogeographic regions (Alpine, Atlantic, Boreal, Continental, and Mediterranean), representing eight land uses (urban, industrial, agricultural, forestry, mining, (semi)natural, wetland, and dryland) and three management intensities, will be extracted by zonal centrifugation and characterized (up to genus level) molecularly. From each nematode suspension, an amplicon library will be constructed (490 bp, V6-V8 region of the 18S rRNA gene) and sequenced (Illumina MiSeq 2x300bp). A bio-informatics pipeline will quality control, filter and compare the retained sequences with an in-house curated nematode sequence database comprising more than 700 genera (DNA-metabarcoding). This will result, for each nematode suspension or soil sample, in a list of detected nematode genera with a number of sequence reads. The latter is a representative of their abundance. Climate chamber and rain shelter experiments will investigate adaptation capacity and resilience to climate change. Soil structure analysis, including X-ray Computed Tomography, for soil density and pore network characteristics and computational tools with Artificial Intelligence will upscale experimental results. Ultimately, the results will provide insights into key soil nematode genera and indicators related to ecosystem functions, services, and climate change. Together with the data of other soil organisms, digital decision-support tools and recommendations will be developed for decision-makers and policymakers to enhance ecosystem service delivery in a changing climate.