Because having a wide variety of species on earth is essential for
human health and our economy, conservation areas have been
established worldwide. These conservation efforts mostly focus on
“beauties,” such as pandas or tigers. Many other species are not as
charismatic and thus merely considered “beasts.” Many “beasts” live
invisible lives in the soil but are extremely important for mankind.
We asked whether current conservation efforts based on saving
the “beauties” can help to automatically protect the “beasts.” In
other words, is there high biological diversity in the soil at locations
with high aboveground biodiversity? We mapped aboveground and
belowground biodiversity across the world and found that there are
many areaswhere aboveground biodiversity is high and belowground
biodiversity is low, or the other way around. Our results suggest
that conserving the “beauties” may not be enough to protect the “beasts.” We need to consider life belowground when planning new
conservation areas.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:89022 |
| Date | 15 January 2024 |
| Creators | Gottschall, Felix, Cameron, Erin K., Martins, Ines S., Siebert, Julia, Eisenhauer, Nico |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 547740 |
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