Climate change affects subterranean ecosystems

The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO): Changes above the ground, such as a higher concentration of carbon dioxide and increased temperatures have major consequences for the contact zone between plant roots and the soil. This became apparent during the recently completed research programme Biodiversity in relation to Global Change (BIGC) from NWO. The UN year of biodiversity should therefore devote attention to subterranean ecosystems as well. This year NWO is launching a new research programme in the area of biodiversity and ecology.

In the contact zone between plant roots and the soil, bacteria, fungi and small invertebrates coexist with the plant roots. Some plants and fungi even help each other to survive. Researchers from the BIGC programme discovered that the composition of the subterranean community can change considerably if plants start to function differently, for example, due to a rise in temperature.

A change in the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can also effect the biodiversity beneath our feet as plant roots then release different types and quantities of substances. Plants that grow well if more carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere can, for example, suppress fungi better. This in turn has consequences for the other subterranean flora and fauna. Some soil organisms benefit from more carbon dioxide in the air, whereas others do not. The effects of climate change are not observed in soil outside of the root zone.

In 2010, the United Nations is calling on the world to maintain biodiversity. Yet what are the consequences of this deterioration in biodiversity? This was investigated over the past few years under the NWO programme Biodiversity in relation to Global Change. The results from the programme clearly show that subterranean biodiversity also merits our attention. The fundamental knowledge yielded by this programme could ultimately be important for applications in agriculture….

A field of red tulips, shot by Sheila Ellen, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license