Project
Food webs and Ecosystem Functioning During Soil Transformations
The use of land for agriculture, commercial forestry, and other goals forms the most substantial human alteration of the Earth system. This currently represents the primary driving force in the loss of biological diversity and habitat degradation worldwide.
Much is still to be learned about how soils transform through these kinds of land uses. The EU project Soil Transformations in European Catchments (SoilTrEC) aims at developing an integrated model of soil processes and ecosystem services, by studying areas with newly formed to severely degraded soils. The functional role of the soil food web interactions (especially microbes) and the importance of these in ecosystem functioning form an essential part of this project.