Expert Committee "Monitoring of soil biodiversity and its functions"

The Expert Committee "Monitoring of soil biodiversity and its functions" advises the Principal Expert Committee of the Monitoring Centre on soil biodiversity. It develops a basic concept that contains the foundations for a nationwide soil biodiversity monitoring. In addition, initial recommendations are given for specific basic monitoring modules that can be implemented nationwide in short to medium term.

Context

Soils secure the human food base, regulate the climate through their carbon storage, clean water, enable material cycles and provide habitat for various organisms. The functionality of soils is largely realized through the activity of soil organisms. Today, soils are changing due to intensive use, increasing sealing of surfaces, land use conversions, pollution, and climate change. As a result, their structural and chemical-physical quality is greatly threatened and therefore the functions of the soil as well.

The goal of a nationwide, standardized monitoring of soil organisms and functions is to document the state and changes of soil biodiversity and its dynamics. The data should provide the basis to:

research the causes of changes
derive measures to conserve biodiversity-related soil functions and services
verify the success of conservation measures

Objectives and Tasks

The Expert Committee "Monitoring of soil biodiversity and its functions":

Advises the Principal Expert Committee on the topic of soil biodiversity
Develops a proposal for a basic concept for future nationwide soil biodiversity monitoring as part of the principal concept "Advancement of nationwide biodiversity monitoring"
Establishes the foundations for a comprehensive conceptualization of soil biodiversity monitoring

Soil biodiversity, as defined by the Expert Committee…

…refers to the structural and functional diversity of organisms, species, and populations that either spend their entire or part of their life cycle in the soil or have the soil surface as their essential habitat. It encompasses the genetic variation within organisms and their communities, along with their ecological relationships and processes at the scale of soil microhabitats up to landscapes. (based on the definition of the FAO, 2020).

FAO report: State of knowledge of soil biodiversity (2020)

Current activities and topics

A position paper has been created with the following main themes:
- The importance of soil, soil biodiversity, and the need for monitoring
- Overview of existing nationwide programs
- Definition of tasks for the expert committee
A current analysis of monitoring activities related to soil biodiversity has been conducted.
Specific goals for monitoring soil biodiversity and functions have been formulated as the foundation for a nationwide soil biodiversity monitoring concept.
A project on the practicality of monitoring soil organisms has been implemented.
Participation in the Biodiversa+ pilot project 'Soil biodiversity in protected, near-natural forests'"
Recommendations for the baseline survey of the nationwide soil biodiversity monitoring have been developed.

List of Members

Current overview of the members of the Expert Committee „Improving the availability of data on drivers of biodiversity”. The links lead to the profiles of the individuals in their respective institutions, if available.
Name	Institution
Federal Authorities
Dr. Frank Glante	Federal Environment Agency (UBA)
Dr. Christina Lachmann	National Monitoring Centre for Biodiversity (NMZB)
Judith Lenzen	Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN)
Dr. Moritz Nabel	Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN)
Dr. Silvia Pieper	Federal Environment Agency (UBA)
Dr. Lina Weiß	National Monitoring Centre for Biodiversity (NMZB)
State Authorities
Dr. Heinrich Höper	State Agency for Mining, Energy and Geology (LBEG)
Dr. Heike Puhlmann	Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg (FVA BW)
Roswitha Walter	Bavarian State Institute for Agriculture (LfL)
Research and Education
Prof. Dr. François Buscot	Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer	German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Dr. Erik Grüneberg	Thünen Institute of Forest Ecosystems
Dr. Lukas Beule	Julius Kühn Institute (JKI)
Dr. Bernd Hommel	Julius Kühn Institute (JKI)
Dr. David Russell	Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz
Prof. Dr. Stefan Scheu	University of Göttingen
Prof. Dr. Christoph Tebbe	Thünen Institute of Biodiversity
Prof. Dr. Martina Roß-Nickoll	RWTH Aachen University
Monitoring Practice
Dr. Anneke Beylich	IFAB Institute for Applied Soil Biology
Dr. Andreas Toschki	Gaiac Research Institut