title: An Underground Revolution: Biodiversity and Soil Ecological Engineering for Agricultural Sustainability.
abstract: Soil organisms are an integral component of ecosystems, but their activities receive little recognition in agricultural management strategies. Here we synthesize the potential of soil organisms to enhance ecosystem service delivery and demonstrate that soil biodiversity promotes multiple ecosystem functions simultaneously (i.e., ecosystem multifunctionality). We apply the concept of ecological intensification to soils and we develop strategies for targeted exploitation of soil biological traits. We compile promising approaches to enhance agricultural sustainability through the promotion of soil biodiversity and targeted management of soil community composition. We present soil ecological engineering as a concept to generate human land-use systems, which can serve immediate human needs while minimizing environmental impacts.
authors.affiliation: Plant-Soil Interactions, Agroscope Institute for Sustainability Sciences, 8046 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: S Franz
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Bender
authors.affiliation: Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Cameron
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wagg
authors.affiliation: Plant-Soil Interactions, Agroscope Institute for Sustainability Sciences, 8046 Zurich, Switzerland; Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland; Plant-Microbe Interactions, Institute of Environmental Biology, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: marcel.vanderheijden@agroscope.admin.ch.
authors.forename: Marcel G A
authors.initials: MGA
authors.lastname: van der Heijden
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D044822:Biodiversity; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D006801:Humans; D012987:Soil
chemical_list: D012987:Soil