The soil is an ecosystem too

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Soil ecosystems the hidden assets
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Soil as an ecosystem

• Engine that drives soil ecosystem functions
• Carbon cycle storage
• Valuation of ecosystem
• Biotechnology lifts lid on soil black box

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What is underfoot

• 1010-1011 bacteria gt106 fungi ? viruses
• 6,000-8.3 million species of microbes
• stocking rate up to 20 DSE/ha (45 kg sheep)
• functions underpin ecosystem services

VVSR Gupta
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The soil carbon connection
Skjemstad Baldock
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Soil Carbon Cycle
CO2 mineralisation
Photosynthesis CO2 trapped
Assimilation
Substrate C (2.Soluble 3.Particulate)
1.Living Microbial Biomass C
5.Charcoal
Release
C humification
4.Humus
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Valuation

• 17 soil associated ecosystem services globally
  worth 33 trillion pa, 1.8 X GNP (Costanza et al
  1997, Nature)
• Creating a market for Ecosystem Goods Services
  (EGS) in Australia (G. Stoneham, 2008)

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Van der Heijden et al 2008
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Van der Heijden et al 2008
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• Outcome Plant productivity

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Other services
Water Quality Aquatic habitat
Plant Diversity terrestrial habitat
Carbon (sequestration)
Air quality
Plant productivity
Fertilisers
Soil class
Pesticides
Diversity
structure
Weeds
Disease
Decomposition
Surface cover
Salt
Fertilisers
P loss/ availability
Boron
Diversity
N loss/ availability
Diversity
input variables
fixed
Influenced by management
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Biotechnology lifting the lid on the black box

• We do not know their names or what they do
• lt5 of species or lt1 of OTUs described
• There are no soils where all species/OTUs of
  microbes are described or quantified
• You cant value, manage or mitigate what you
  cant measure
• Paradigm shift (components to systems) demand
  for new capabilities (DNA sequencing,
  bioinformatics, modellers)

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Pyrosequencing (16s rRNA)
52,000
1st genome sequenced
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Microarrays (16S rRNA)
8,741
Microscope
Culture media
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DNA profiles
30 genomes incl human
Fatty acid profiles
No.microbial species/OTUs identified
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1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
time
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Implications

• New species, new processes, new products
• Soil is likely to yield gt1M new species, gt 2M new
  genes
• New tools for precision diagnoses (eg
  microarrays)
• In depth knowledge of community diversity and
  interactions (value)
• New capabilities in bioinformatics/soils database
  curation