The soils in our city parks may be more important than the plants

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-01-10 09:37

Australia; International; NSW; VIC

The range of bacteria, fungi, and invertebrates living in the soils of our city parks and gardens may be more important for healthy ecosystems than the range of plants we plant there, according to Australian and international research. The study which looked at urban parks in 56 locations across 6 continents, including Australia, found that the biodiversity of the soil is tied to many ecosystem functions including plant productivity, water regulation, and plant pathogen control. Unexpectedly, the study found that plant diversity had a limited role in explaining the ecosystem functioning of city parks.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Ecology & Evolution

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of New South Wales, Western Sydney University, The University of Melbourne, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Funder: This study was supported by a 2019 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation (URBANFUN), and by the BES grant agreement number LRB17\1019 (MUSGONET). M.D.-B. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I+D+i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. M.D.-B. is also supported by a project of the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and the Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 Objetivo temático ‘01— Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación’) associated with the research project P20_00879 (ANDABIOMA). H.C. was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA28020202), National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFD1500202) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91951109, 42230511, 92251305). K.F. was supported by Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program by CAST (2021QNRC001) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M703302). F.D.A. and S.A. were supported by ANID FONDECYT 11180538 and 1170995. J.P.V. was supported by SERB (SIR/2022/000626, EEQ/2021/001083), DST (DST/INT/SL/P-31/2021) and Banaras Hindu University, IoE (6031) incentives grant for plant-microbe interaction and soil microbiome research. T.G. and T.U.N were supported by the Slovenian Research Agency grants P4-0107, J4-3098 and J4-4547.

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