[FRB-CESAB Webinar] FaunaServices: Towards Quantifying Ecosystem Services Delivered by Soil Macrofauna in the Neotropics

https://www.fondationbiodiversite.fr/en/evenement/frb-cesab-cesabinars/

We are very pleased to announce our next online CESABINAR, which will take place on Thursday 23th of April, at 3:00 pm (Paris time), Jérôme Mathieu (Sorbonne Université) & Miguel Cooper (Universidade de São Paulo) will present the work of the FAUNASERVICES group.

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FaunaServices: Towards Quantifying Ecosystem Services Delivered by Soil Macrofauna in the Neotropics

Neotropical forests are widely recognized for their crucial role in climate regulation, particularly through tree-mediated water cycles. However, these ecosystems also harbor an exceptional diversity and abundance of soil organisms, whose contributions to ecosystem services have largely been overlooked. Yet, these organisms are highly vulnerable to land-use change and are rapidly declining with deforestation.

Quantifying their contribution to ecosystem functioning is therefore essential to fully understand the broader consequences of deforestation beyond vegetation loss.

In this project, we aimed to quantify key ecosystem services provided by soil macrofauna. To do so, we developed four harmonized databases: (i) a standardized dataset on the abundance of 40 soil macrofauna taxa (3k sites), (ii) a database on earthworm species occurrence and abundance (1.5k sites) , (iii) a dataset on soil profiles and associated ecosystem services (6k sites), and (iv) a database documenting the impacts of ecosystem engineers on soil processes (>1k records).

This seminar will present the main outcomes of the FaunaServices project, highlight the challenges encountered, and discuss how this initiative has laid the foundation for a long-term research network dedicated to understanding soil macrofauna-driven ecosystem services across South America.

Key Publications
● Brown et al (2024) Soil macrofauna communities in Brazilian land-use systems. Biodiversity Data Journal 12: e115000. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.12.e115000
● Demetrio et al (2025) Manual de Biologia do Solo, 1st Ed. Londrina
● Wu et al (2025) Global engineering effects of soil invertebrates on ecosystem functions. Nature (2025) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08594-y

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All info: https://www.fondationbiodiversite.fr/en/evenement/frb-cesab-cesabinars/