Study
Belowground biodiversity and ecosystem functioning
Bardgett, Richard D.; van der Putten, Wim H.
Nature, 2014
Reviews the diversity of soil organisms, the difficulties of measuring it, and the evidence linking that diversity to processes including decomposition, nutrient cycling and plant productivity.
- Studied in
- Bacteria, Fungi, Animalia
- Sample size
- review of soil biodiversity and function studies
Soil hosts an extraordinary and incompletely described diversity of organisms. Links between that diversity and ecosystem function are documented but frequently non-linear, with substantial functional redundancy for some processes and strong dependence on particular groups for others.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Soil biodiversity matters for ecosystem functioning, but the relationship is process-specific rather than uniform.
How NatureHQ reads it
Used here to resist two opposite oversimplifications. "Soil is teeming with life and every species matters" and "soil organisms are functionally redundant so diversity is irrelevant" are both wrong, in different directions. Redundancy is high for broad processes like carbon respiration and low for specific ones like nitrification, and saying which is which is the useful part.
- Soil biodiversity is poorly described relative to above-ground diversity, so absence of evidence is common.
- Most diversity-function experiments manipulate coarse groups rather than species.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
The rhizosphere
A root is a concentrated solution sitting in a dilute one, so small molecules diffuse out. Some release is genuinely active. Calling all of it the plant feeding its microbes attributes purpose to physics.
The soil food web
Neither "every soil species matters" nor "soil organisms are interchangeable" is right. Broad jobs like respiring carbon have many organisms able to do them; narrow ones like nitrification have very few.
Published by: Nature PortfolioPublished in a Nature Portfolio journal.
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-04.