Bengtsson, Jan
- Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2019Peer reviewedOpen access
Towards valuation of biodiversity in agricultural soils: A case for earthworms
Plaas, Elke; Meyer-Wolfarth, Friederike; Banse, Martin; Bengtsson, Jan; Bergmann, Holger; Faber, Jack; Potthoff, Martin; Runge, Tania; Schrader, Stefan; Taylor, Astrid
Abstract
Soil biodiversity is deteriorating in Europe due to an on-going intensification of agriculture, climate change and food production supporting measures of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Nevertheless, the CAP tries to take biodiversity into account via proposing a range of agri-environmental measures. These ES contribute to food security, climate change mitigation, water retention and plant biomass growth. Healthy soils also help to prevent erosion, desertification, and landslides and to stabilise crop yields. The provision of ES by soil biota is a result of their impact on soil processes in interaction with soil conditions as well as soil management practices of the farmers such as tillage or crop rotations. Some taxa amongst soil biota play key roles in regulating soil processes. With respect to biocontrol of soil-borne pests, the earthworm species Lumbricus terrestris is known to play an important role in suppressing toxigenic plant pathogens, such as Fusarium culmorum and its mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON). We highlight the importance of earthworms for pest control to conceptualise and show how farmers' management practices influence soil ecosystem services and outline how this can be examined in a socio-ecological context by providing a concrete example of an economical evaluation of ES provided by earthworms.
Keywords
Ecosystem services; Soil biodiversity; Economic value; Soil management practices; Sustainability; Ecosystem engineers
Published in
Ecological Economics
2019, volume: 159, pages: 291-300
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
SLU Authors
Taylor, Astrid
- Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Associated SLU-program
SLU Plant Protection Network
Global goals (SDG)
SDG2 Zero hunger
SDG13 Climate action
SDG15 Life on land
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Economics
Soil Science
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.02.003
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/99507