Soil biodiversity monitoring in Europe: Ongoing activities and challenges

The increasing interest in soil biodiversity and its protection includes both the biodiversity conservation issues and the mostly unknown economic and ecological values of services provided by soil biodiversity. Inventory and monitoring are necessary tools for the achievement of an adequate level of knowledge regarding soil biodiversity status and for the detection of biodiversity hot spots as well as areas where current levels of biodiversity are under threat of decline. In this paper the main tools and methodological approaches for soil biodiversity measurement are presented. Technical aspects related to the inventory and monitoring activities at a large spatial scale are discussed. A short review of some current experiences of soil biodiversity monitoring at the European level is also presented. © 2009 British Society of Soil Science.