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Soil biodiversity and human health

Nature volume 528, pages 69–76 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Soil biodiversity is increasingly recognized as providing benefits to human health because it can suppress disease-causing soil organisms and provide clean air, water and food. Poor land-management practices and environmental change are, however, affecting belowground communities globally, and the resulting declines in soil biodiversity reduce and impair these benefits. Importantly, current research indicates that soil biodiversity can be maintained and partially restored if managed sustainably. Promoting the ecological complexity and robustness of soil biodiversity through improved management practices represents an underutilized resource with the ability to improve human health.

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Figure 1: Flow diagram illustrating the link between soil biodiversity and human health.
Figure 2: A conceptual framework illustrating how decisions on land use and management are linked to human health through the effect on soil biodiversity.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the encouragement of J. Lehmann to write this article, and acknowledge the comments of B. Adams, L. Duncan, A. Franco, T. Fraser, M. Knox, K. Pintauro, A. Shaw, A. Weller and S. Vandewoude. D.H.W. acknowledges the Winslow Foundation.

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Author notes

  1. Diana H. Wall, Uffe N. Nielsen and Johan Six: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Global Environmental Sustainability and Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, 80523-1036, Colorado, USA

    Diana H. Wall

  2. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Locked Bag 1797, Western Sydney University, Penrith, 2751, New South Wales, Australia

    Uffe N. Nielsen

  3. Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH-Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland

    Johan Six

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  1. Diana H. Wall
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D.H.W., J.S. and U.N.N. contributed equally to the planning and writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Diana H. Wall.

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Wall, D., Nielsen, U. & Six, J. Soil biodiversity and human health. Nature 528, 69–76 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15744

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