Soil Biology in the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene era challenges soil biota by continually presenting new opportunities for growth or adaptation, and unleashing perturbations that inhibit or destroy life. Do these impacts on soil communities translate into major changes in the ecosystem services they provide, and can the resistance and resilience associated with the enormous diversity in soil communities be overidden by unexpected or extreme change? Historical trajectories of human and natural systems, including their microbial inhabitants, have been intrinsically linked. Human prediliction for rapid “progress” can promote long-term erosion of resilience and reduction of natural capital, often as a result of the degradation of the supporting and regulating services provided by soil microbial communities, and can lead to collapse of environmental and social systems.

Research is exploring how variations in climate, land use change, contamination, soil sealing, resource extraction, and other consequences of human activities interact with ever-adapting soil biological communities. Questions that emerge include what are the thresholds with respect to type, intensity, and frequency of perturbations for specific microbial taxa or consortia and their functions; which ecologically important groups are most sensitive or resistant; by increasing diversity can greater resistance/resilience to perturbation be conferred on communities; are there interactions between multiple stressors; can microbial symbionts mitigate potential negative impacts on their more sensitive hosts?  Resilience theory provides a framework to understand the sources and role of change in integrated and co-evolving natural and built ecosystems. The capacity of soil to archive a taxonomically and functionally diverse array of revivable microorganisms, many of who have lain dormant for years, is crucial to the ability of soil, and the terrestrial ecosystems they are part of, to adapt to and survive the challenges of the Anthropocene.