Publication

Soil communities are among the most species-rich components of terrestrial ecosystems. A major challenge for soil ecologists is to formulate feasible research strategies that will preserve and capitalize on the biodiversity resources of the soil. This article considers the role of soil organism diversity by concentrating on: (i) the relationship between soil biodiversity and ecosystem function; (ii) what issues need to be explored; (iii) studies carried out in the Ecotron controlled environment facility; and (iv) how stable isotope techniques can improve our understanding of the relationship between soil biodiversity and ecosystem function. It is advocated that: (i) the objective of any soil biodiversity study should always be the generation of general concepts, rather than local, system-specific observations; and (ii) any empirical study can be properly interpreted only within a quantitative ecological framework.