Latent extinction risk of soil fauna in Beijing: A 4-year study from 2013 to 2016

Abstract

Soil ecosystems are far more functionally valuable than previously thought, so soil biodiversity conservation deserves more attention. Soil animals are less visible and often overlooked, so maintaining ecosystem function is essential to reducing species loss. In contrast to aboveground communities, the susceptibility to extinction in the belowground world to data has been dealt with only cursorily. Here, we surveyed population sizes of different animal orders in both urban and rural Beijing from 2013 to 2016, to study the impact of increasing urbanization on the ecology of soil fauna. We found 9 orders had less than 1% of soil-animal population in both urban and rural areas. The populations of 6 orders in urban areas were far smaller than those in rural areas. Between 2013 and 2016, both urban (46.9%) and rural (61.2%) areas had experienced a substantial long-term population decrease, and soil animals in Beijing suffered a 52.8% loss of population. Our study indicates 40.9% of orders may be in danger of local extinction, and 27.3% of orders seem highly susceptible to urbanization. Over just four years the soil-animal population in Beijing is shrinking fast thanks largely to increasing urbanization. This raises the worrying prospect of a future soil fauna that may be at risk of local extinction in cities. It is therefore necessary to provide a pragmatic approach to soil-animal diversity conservation. Moreover, the deeper understanding of soil extinction ecology opens up an exciting frontier of opportunities for future research.

Keywords

• population size
• diversity conservation
• urbanization
• local extinction risk
• beijing