• The work has been selected along with 4 other works among the more than 350 published in 2020.
• The journal Soil Biology and Biochemistry highlights the clarity and importance of the messages that are transmitted in this publication and that are exemplary in line with the motto of this day.
In celebration of World Soil Day, the journal Soil Biology and Biochemistry has selected five articles published in 2020 that, according to the journal, exemplarily convey the importance of this year's campaign “Keep Soil Alive, Protect Soil Biodiversity”. The theme of this celebration urges us to focus our attention on the fundamental role that belowground life plays in ensuring that soils provide the wide range of critical functions that keep terrestrial ecosystems functioning.
Among the selected papers, the publication by researchers from the Desertification Research Center (CIDE, CSIC-UV-GVA), Eduardo Pérez-Valera, Miguel Verdú and Juan Antonio Navarro entitled 'Soil microbiome drives the recovery of ecosystem functions after fire' highlights, in a year in which the damage caused to ecosystems by fire is unprecedented, the importance of deepening the knowledge of the mechanisms used by terrestrial systems to recover from disturbances such as those caused by fires.
Fires are ecological disturbances that cause drastic changes in plant communities, modify the physical and chemical environment of the soil, and ultimately alter soil microbiomes, thereby interfering with the functions that mediate terrestrial ecosystems.
En los ecosistemas de la cuenca mediterránea, donde las comunidades biológicas han coexistido con el fuego durante escalas de tiempo evolutivas, las plantas muestran una alta resistencia a los incendios frecuentes. Del mismo modo, los principales grupos de microbios del suelo muestran diferentes niveles de resistencia, es decir, el grado en que la composición microbiana permanece sin cambios ante una perturbación, y de resiliencia, esto es, la velocidad a la que la composición microbiana vuelve a su composición original después de haber sido perturbada.
In Mediterranean basin ecosystems, where biological communities have coexisted with fire over evolutionary time scales, plants show high resistance to frequent fires. Similarly, major soil microbial groups show different levels of resistance, i.e., the degree to which microbial composition remains unchanged in the face of disturbance, and resilience, i.e., the rate at which microbial composition returns to its original composition after being disturbed.
World Soil Day, sponsored by the United Nations, is celebrated annually on December 5 as a means to focus attention on the importance of healthy soil and to advocate for the sustainable management of soil resources.
Reference:
Perez-Valera, E.; Verdu, M.; Navarro-Cano, J. A.; Goberna, M. Soil microbiome drives the recovery of ecosystem functions after fire. Soil Biology and Biochemistry. Volume 149, October 2020, 107948.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2020.107948
CIDE Communication
