Environmental resource management

Sociology

Soil water

Population

Biodiversity conservation

Soil biodiversity

Biology

Biodiversity

Measurement of biodiversity

Demography

Aquatic biodiversity research

Geography

Ecology

Metacommunity

Soil fertility

Environmental science

Biological dispersal

Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society

Soil is one of the most biodiverse terrestrial habitats. Yet, we lack an integrative conceptual framework for understanding the patterns and mechanisms driving soil biodiversity. One of the underlying reasons for our poor understanding of soil biodiversity patterns relates to whether key biodiversity theories (historically developed for aboveground and aquatic organisms) are applicable to patterns of soil biodiversity. Here, we present a systematic literature review to investigate whether and how key biodiversity theories (species-energy relationship, theory of island biogeography, metacommunity theory, niche theory and neutral theory) can explain observed patterns of soil biodiversity. We then discuss two spatial compartments nested within soil at which biodiversity theories can be applied to acknowledge the scale-dependent nature of soil biodiversity.

Towards an integrative understanding of soil biodiversity