Abstract:

The important roles of soil fauna diversity and associated indicative functions of environment changes have received increasing attention from both academic circles and government decision makers. This paper summarizes the current situation of soil fauna monitoring in developed countries and related work in China. We introduce the objectives and structure of the thematic monitoring network of soil fauna diversity (TMNSFD), and highlighted some aspects that need attention. The TMNSFD proposed to establish permanent monitoring plots within forest plots established by Chinese Forest Biodiversity Monitoring Network for monitoring soil fauna including earthworms, mites, springtails, nematodes and protists. During the years 2016-2020, TMNSFD may choose typical forest ecosystems as priority ecosystems for soil fauna monitoring, which cover temperate forest ecosystems (including broadleaved Korean pine mixed forests in Changbaishan, Jilin Province and warm temperate deciduous broadleaved forests in Donglingshan, Beijing), subtropical forest ecosystems (including typical subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests in Gutianshan, Zhejiang Province, lower subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests in Dinghushan, Guangdong Province, and north subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests in Dujiangyan, Sichuan Province), tropical forest ecosystems (tropical rainforests in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province and Jianfengling, Hainan Province), as well as mountainous dark coniferous forests in Liziping, Sichuan Province. By 2030, TMNSFD soil fauna monitoring plots may cover various ecosystems including forests, grasslands, wetlands, deserts, farmland, urban areas and other typical ecosystems in different regions of China. TMNSFD emphasizes the value of applied molecular biology technology, unified monitoring methods, and manipulation experiments to simulate the effects of global change on soil fauna during the processes of monitoring. We propose monitoring soil fauna diversity once every 5 years in established monitoring plots. The objective of TMNSFD is to provide reliable and integrated data of soil fauna diversity via the establishment of standard monitoring methods and a data-sharing network at the national level, which could support the development of ecological civilization in China.

Key words: monitoring objective, plot setting, monitoring group, monitoring index