Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
10.2.6 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which began in 1988, is a sci-
entific body that focuses on developing syntheses from data to report a clear scientific
view on current information regarding the status of climate change and its potential
consequences for society and the environment. Soil organic matter, soil greenhouse gas
flux, and nutrient availability are assessed for different land/environmental management
types over time, but inclusion of soil biodiversity is limited. The IPCC has identified gaps
in our knowledge of how carbon is fragmented within different pools in the soil and how
temperature and moisture in different ecosystems influence soil carbon sequestration
(Paustian, 2009). Soil biota, key regulators of decomposition and thus soil carbon turnover,
are influenced by climatic conditions at regional scales. Including them in predictions of
decomposition at the regional or biome scale could help reduce uncertainties in regional
decomposition models (Wall et al., 2008).
These examples of internationally acknowledged environmental issues that relate soil
or soil biodiversity to global scales indicate their relevance to society. More importantly,
these few examples illustrate that research findings on soil and biodiversity science cannot
be considered as separate disciplinary silos if we are to address interacting global changes
and feed the growing population sustainably.
Soil biota provide many ecosystem services, including contribution to landscape heteroge-
neity and stability; contribution to production of food, fuel, and fiber; provision of habitat
and food for above- and belowground wildlife; provision of habitats for recreation and
natural history; regulation of air and water quality; sequestration of carbon; recycling of
nutrients and energy from waste and dead organisms; translocation of organic matter,
nutrients, and organisms within and from soil; erosion control; and regulation of pests
and pathogens and soil fertility (Wall, 2004; Lavelle et al., 2006; Singh et al., 2010). Over
the past few decades, research to generate this knowledge has followed two paths, largely
driven by recognition of accelerated biodiversity loss due to human activities. In one path,
scientists explored how species loss would affect the operation of different ecosystems.
This was scientific recognition that biodiversity plays a role in ecosystem processes (Daily
et al., 1997; Wall, 2004; Nielsen et al., 2010). Because environmental changes are affect-
ing society, a separate research path developed by economists, ecologists, social scientists,
NGOs, and businesses focused on how the products of ecosystem processes resulted in the
goods and services used by society (Karieva et al., 2011). This latter question was relevant
to agricultural forests, crops, and rangeland as well as to fisheries, but it also addressed
how biodiversity that is central to ecosystem functioning would provide services in the
face of continued human alterations to climate, water, land, and biodiversity. Critically,
this latter question was of interest to policy makers internationally because all countries
and peoples are dependent on ecosystem services for their economies and societal well-
being (President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2011; U.K. National
Ecosystem Assessment, 2011).
Evidence for the effect of soil biodiversity on ecosystem processes has been variable. In
most soils, particularly in wild and less-managed lands, research on the role of
individual
species
in ecosystem functioning has been more difficult to assess than in actively man-
aged agricultural systems. This is partly because the larger diversity and abundance of
species and their interactions on processes generally hinder causative analyses (Nielsen
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