There is a lack of information about how soil organisms are involved in the delivery of ecosystem functions and services, hindering their inclusion in monitoring and restoration programmes and investments. BIOservicES will, for 60 months, gather a multidisciplinary team of soil scientists, ecologists, biologists, agronomists, foresters, applied economists, public agencies, consulting and advisor SMEs, modellers, statisticians, social innovators, public administration and experts in stakeholders engagement and in communication and dissemination activities, to provide new knowledge about the soil ecosystem functions and services associated to soil organisms and develop new indicators, tools and incentives to identify and monitor the keystone soil organisms that contribute to the delivery of ecosystem services in European land uses. For this, we will work on 25 experimental sites distributed across five biogeographic regions (Alpine (Switzerland), Atlantic (Spain), Boreal (Latvia), Continental (Germany) and Mediterranean (Spain)), covering eight different land uses (urban, industrial, agricultural, forestry, mining, (semi)-natural, wetland and dryland). Three different management intensities will be selected per land use to assess pressures and drivers, and adaptation capacity and resilience to climate change. After soil sampling in all experimental sites, there will be a characterization of soil biodiversity (archaea, bacteria, fungi, protists, nematodes, microarthropods, earthworms, isopods, millipedes, insects and spiders) and ecosystem functions and services by measures of specific variables. This will be agreed with stakeholders (social science and multi-actor approach) and EU/international organizations (harmonization methods) to define and build suitable indicators. Then, we will develop computational tools with Artificial Intelligence elements (statistical learning, machine learning) to upscale the experimental results to: i) elucidate the interconnection between keystone soil organisms, soil structure and ecosystem functions and services, identifying drivers and pressures, ii) perform time and spatial predictions under climate change scenarios, and iii) upscale the relationship between organisms and ecosystem functions and services from field to landscape level. Marketed and non-marketed economic valuation will be performed to translate the biophysical values of the ecosystem services to end-user language and to foster investments. Policy and incentive analysis will promote that keystone organisms related to key ecosystem services are included in monitoring/conservation/restoration plans. Thus, BIOservicES will deliver knew knowledge, digital decision-support tools and models and policy briefs and recommendations (digital agenda) to identify key soil organisms related to key ecosystem services, select the best strategies/management to enhance the delivery of ecosystem services related to key soil organisms under climate change, promote private and public investments in soil health, and facilitate international partnerships, mostly addressed to landowners, decision makers and policy makers.
