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ROLE OF SOIL AND SOIL MICROORGANISMS IN EVALUATION PROCESS OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A REVIEW Article · January 2014

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Available from: Peter Hanajík Retrieved on: 13 May 2016

Phytopedon (Bratislava), Vol. 13, 2014/2, p. 9–13.

PETER HANAJÍK Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Natural Science, Comenius University, Mlynská dolina B–2, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovak Republic, e-mail: [email protected]

ROLE OF SOIL AND SOIL MICROORGANISMS IN EVALUATION PROCESS OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A REVIEW

Abstract Hanajík, P., 2014: Role of microorganisms in soil ecosystem services: a review. Phytopedon (Bratislava), Vol. 13, 2014/2, p. 9–13. Changes in ecosystems can have dramatic effect on their functioning and can cause quality decrease of the ecosystem services. These changes can be of natural or anthropogenic origin. Lot of effort is put nowadays into identifying and estimating economic importance and value of most ecosystem parts. For such an evaluation is the most important the understanding of inner connections among individual parts of the ecosystems as far all parts of the ecosystem are more or less bounded together and reflects their condition some way in other parts. This paper reviews studies that focus at importance of microorganisms in evaluation process of soil ecosystem services. Keywords: ecosystem services, ecosystem functions, soil microorganisms

INTRODUCTION The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth's life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet. For the entire biosphere, the value (most of which in outside the market) is roughly estimated to be in the range of US$16–54 trillion (1012) per year, with in average of US$33 trillion per year (COSTANZA et al. 1997). Ecosystem services are strongly connected with ecosystem functions which are defined by the habitat, biological and system properties, and processes of ecosystems. These properties and processes in ecosystem are basic stones for the methodological approaches attempting to estimate value of ecosystems. EVALUATION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES Ecosystem services (ES) can be divided into four main groups: Supporting (nutrient cycling, soil

formation, primary production etc.), provisioning (food, fresh water, wood and fiber, fuel etc.), regulating (climate regulation, flood regulation, disease regulation, water purification etc.) and cultural (aesthetic, spiritual, educational, recreational etc.). These ES influence variously the constituents of human well-being which can be also divided into four main groups: Security (personal safety, secure resource access, security from disasters etc.), Basic material for good life (adequate livelihoods, sufficient nutritious food, shelter, access to goods etc.), health (strength, feeling well, access to clean air and water etc.) and good social relations (social cohesion, mutual respect, ability to help others etc.). Constituents mentioned above support freedom of choice and action what can be understood as an opportunity to be able to achieve what an individual values doing and being (MILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT 2005). In making decisions about human activities, it is essential to consider both, the value of the development and the value of the ecosystem services that could be lost. Despite a growing recognition of the importance of ecosystem services, their value is

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often overlooked in environmental decisionmaking. The value of ecosystem services depends on underlying conditions. Ecosystem valuation studies should clearly present assumptions about underlying ecosystem and market conditions and how estimates of value could change with changes in these underlying conditions (BREURE et al. 2012, MOLNAR et KUBISZEWSKI 2012, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 2004, VAN DEN BELT et al. 2014). So far there is no appropriate method recognized by scientific community that could be applied globaly. Several studies deal with global evaluation of ES pointing out difficulties of using various evaluation methods on numerous types of ecosystems thus presenting different values estimations (COSTANZA et al. 1997, PATTERSON 2002, PIMENTEL et al. 1997, NINAN et INOUE 2013). Also focusing closer at estimating approaches in regional scale could be quite challenging what leads recently to conduction of wide range of quantitative and qualitative modelling research on ecosystem services. The available models range between elementary, indicator-based models and complex process-based systems. Nevertheless, some weaknesses have to be considered, including poor flexibility of frequently applied software packages, difficulties in eliciting expert knowledge and the inability to model feedback loops (LANDUYT et al. 2013). Comparing field instructions of the seven European monitoring schemes (CORINE Land Cover, Land Use Cover Area Survey (LUCAS), European Biodiversity Observation Network (EBONE), biodiversity monitoring on organic and low-input farming systems (BioBio), National Inventory of the Landscape of Sweden (NILS), Pan-European Common Birds Monitoring (PECBM) and UK Butterfly monitoring (UK-BM) on the extent to which they can provide data on the provision of ES showed that improvement of the monitoring of ecosystem services is hindered by a robust definition and conceptual framework of ecosystem services or the linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem services or the interpretation of monitoring data (GEIJZENDORFFER et ROCHE 2013, ROBINSON et al. 2013). Current studies on modelling ecosystem services and identification of their current strengths and weaknesses, such as methodological varieties, missing quantification of processes and trade-offs, and insufficient use in resources management are discussed by VOLK (2014). Differences in payments for ecosystem (PES) approach are summarized by MARTIN-ORTEGA et al. (2013) and SCHOMERS et MATZDORF (2013). PORTMAN (2013) reveals historical development of the ES approach pointing the difficulty of simplifying complexities between services so that statutory planning processes can incorporate the approach, and the lack of cross-

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landscape assessment methods and examples. This actually reveals that all plans to manage ecosystem services will not be successful without a deep understanding of their link with the processes in ecosystem that support them. IMPORTANCE OF SOILS IN ES EVALUATION PROCESS Soil is one of the most important components of the terrestrial ecosystems, providing the base for plants growth and thus supports life on Earth. Soil develops over long periods of time through complex interactions among the parent materials (rock, sand, glacial drift materials etc.), the topography, climate, and living organisms (MADIGAN 2013). The soil environment is likely the most complex biological community. Soil organisms are extremely diverse and contribute to a wide range of ecosystem services that are essential to the sustainable function of natural and managed ecosystems. The soil organism community can have direct and indirect impacts on land productivity. Direct impacts are those where specific organisms affect crop yield immediately. Indirect effects include those provided by soil organisms participating in carbon and nutrient cycles, soil structure modification and food web interactions that generate ecosystem services that ultimately affect productivity (BARRIOS 2007). The identities and natural histories of microscopic flora and fauna and many of the larger, visible soil fauna are the least-known biota in terrestrial ecosystems. Their activities provide breaking down organic matter, filtering water, stabilizing soil, generating and renewing soil fertility, providing nutrients for plant growth, modifying the hydrological cycle (including mitigating floods and controlling erosion), and controlling pest and pathogens of plants and animals. Soil biodiversity influences ecosystem processes in all ecosystems, terrestrial and aquatic including the atmosphere, through regulation of CO2 flux and carbon sequestration in soils (WALL et KNOX 2005). SOIL BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS The sustainable management of soils requires soil monitoring, including biological indicators, to be able to relate land use and management to soil functioning and ecosystem services. The development and effective use of meaningful and widely applicable bio-indicators, however, continue to be challenging tasks. Considering the complex of biotic interactions in the soil, in conjunction with the abiotic environment, it is essential to determine soil processes and functions using a comprehensive as possible characterization of soil biodiversity. Like ecosystems in general, soils are hierarchical systems with internal processes operating at each level

of organization and interacting across levels (BOMMARCO et al. 2013, PULLEMAN et al. 2012). Biological indicators can be defined as characteristics of organisms whose response, in terms of presence/absence, abundance, activity, morphology, physiology or behavior, gives information on the condition of a habitat or ecosystem (GERHARDT 2002). Biodiversity structure and microbial redundancy and microbial biomass represent important bioindicators in soil. According to new approaches biodiversity structure and redundancy are considered to be more of significance compering to quantification of microbial biomass. Although amount of microbial biomass can be in positive or negative correlation with some of the soil functions and processes, specific changes in microbial community structure can affect species redundancy and further soil processes intensity more significantly despite the same biomass amount (BARRIOS 2007, HAJJAR et al. 2008, MARON et al. 2011). Anyway the lack of basic knowledge about soil biota, particularly for microorganisms is still unexplored (ANDRÉ et al. 2002, DECAËNS 2010) although the improvement of molecular methods during last decades (HILL et al. 2000, LIU et al. 2006, HIRSCH et al. 2010) has contributed markantly to revealing links between biodiversity structure and soil functioning elucidating their importance for soil processes (GUIMARÃES et al. 2010, TURBÉ et al. 2010, THIELE-BRUHN et al. 2012). Methods such as PCR, qPCR, FAMEs, DGGE or genetic sequencing are recently being used for identifying links between soil microbial diversity and enzymatic activity or microbial diversity, enzymatic activity and plant diversity (VALLEJO et al. 2012, WELC et al. 2014). Structure of microbial diversity in soil habitats can reveal links between intensity of enzymatic activity and specific groups of microorganisms what can be one of the key mechanism affecting soil functions and services through the content of organic carbon compounds. Enzyme production is important in a view of cell communication with abiotic surrounding and plants using enzymes to reduce complex organic compounds which will be then transferred into the cell and used for in energetic metabolism of the cell (GROSSO et al. 2014, MIRALLES et al. 2012, STONE et al. 2014). Functional diversity of soil enzymes can be

analyzed and interpreted in a variety of ways, due to specific research question. Functional diversity between nutrient resources can be based on specific enzyme activities against major carbon (cellulose), nitrogen (protein) and phosphorus constituents. Functional diversity within a nutrient group can be estimated by measuring cellulase and/or phenoloxidase for carbon, protease and amidase for nitrogen or phosphomono- and diesterases for phosphorus. Greater resolution of within group functional diversity could be gained by focusing within a given enzyme activity; e.g., proteolytic activities separated by inhibitor class (CALDWELL 2005). Specific characteristics of soil microbiocenosis such as specific enzyme activity affecting marcantly soil carbon substances or its PLFA fingerprint pointing out changes in microcommunity structure or identification of significant species may enhance implementation of more precise methods in ES evaluation considering microbial characteristics as an important parameters. CONCLUSIONS Linking ecosystem processes and ecosystem services reveals the possible determinants of the biodiversity components on the quantity, quality and reliability of ecosystem services at all levels, and its usefulness in making targeted decisions (FU et al. 2013). These studies examples illustrate complexity of ES topic but also a big effort of scientific community to establish common approach for better understanding ES and evaluation processes. The ability to estimate the economic value of the ES is increasingly recognized as a necessary condition for integrated environmental decision-making, sustainable business practice, and land-use planning at multiple geographic scales and socio-political levels (ROBERTSON 2011, VO et al. 2012). Economic modeling and valuation provide valuable guidance for institutional and market design in conservation, but economic valuation has not yet overcome significant challenges in valuing complex ecosystem service commodities. These ideas and policies remain controversial among economists concerned about the adequacy of valuation techniques, and among ecologists concerned about the reduction in complex ecosystems to a monetary value (ROBERTSON 2011). Translated by the author.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work is part of APVV-0866-12 and VEGA 1/0365/14.

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Ekonomické modelovanie a ohodnotenie poskytuje významnú oporu pre inštitúcie a trh pri tvorbe projektov ochrany prírody a starostlivosti o ňu, no toto ekonomické ohodnocovanie stále neprekonalo dôležité výzvy ktoré predstavujú samotné ohodnocovania jednotlivých komodít komplexných služieb ekosystémov. Tieto idey a postupy zostávajú kontroverzné medzi ekonómami ktorí vidia riziko v adekvátnosti hodnotiacich techník a medzi ekológmi, ktorí sa zase obávajú redukovania komplexných ekosystémov iba na peňažnú hodnotu.

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