Mountain soil biodiversity

Growing evidence of rapid soil degradation across biomes throughout the world has raised awareness of the importance of soils and their biodiversity over the last decades.Mountain soils are critical for many ecosystem processes, functions and services, simultaneously being increasingly affected by climate warming and land use intensification or abandonment. This raises pressing questions on the potential effects of global change on biodiversity, functional roles and responses across altitudes, mountain ranges, and mountain systems. Also, there is an urgent need to increase and improve knowledge on mountain soil biodiversity across organismal groups in order to include mountain soils in future policy and conservation efforts. This session aims to bring together experts from different fields, including ecology, botany, microbiology and zoology, who study mountain soil organisms at local, regional, or global scales. The aim is to explore biodiversity, functional roles, adaptations and responses to global change, considering both current and future perspectives. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on the breadth of existing research and to identify key areas where future efforts could be focused. Building on recent progress, the session will provide a unique opportunity to delve into these issues, foster dialogue and inspire new directions for collaborative approaches to mountain soil biodiversity research.