Impact of climate change on soil biodiversity -A review

Global climate change can have significant impacts on all the soil biodiversity and related services. These impacts can be directly or indirectly linked to the alteration of the climatic parameters (e.g. temperature, humidity). Soil biodiversity is more extensive than any other environment on the globe when all living forms are considered. The soil biota contains representations of all groups of microorganism like fungi, bacteria, algae and viruses, as well as the microfauna such as protozoa and nematodes. Today, disturbance regimes are changing drastically under the combined effects of climate change, biological invasions and direct human modifications of the environment. However, it remains very difficult to assess and predict how soil communities will respond to these disturbances. Environmental variability is an integral part of the dynamics of ecosystems, and some disturbances are unavoidable. Climate change may intensify these seasonal disturbances, stretching the limits more towards those of extreme events.