Opinion: Why we need a National Living Soil Repository.

Soils are the keystone of healthy and vibrant ecosystems, providing physical, chemical, and biological substrates and functions necessary to support life. In particular, it’s the extensive and elaborate matrix of soil microorganisms and other life forms that contributes to soil health and utility. But soils are under constant threat from heavy use, changing climate, and in some cases poor management (1, 2). In view of soil’s key role and threatened status, we believe that there is a need for the scientific community to undertake coordinated research and development efforts that will lead to a unique asset: a National Living Soil Repository (Fig. 1). Already local and national soil archives have been shown to be of great utility for studying, analyzing, and documenting long-term environmental and ecological trends. For example, the historical soil archive at Hubbard Brook helped researchers discover the link between fossil fuels and acidification of rain and snow (3); the Rothamsted Sample Archive in the United Kingdom has shown a steady increase in dioxins during the last century (4). And yet, a soil repository/archive designed to preserve native biological diversity does not currently exist. Such an archive would provide the ability to acquire data on the current biological (e.g., soil health) state of soils around the country across soil types, cropping systems, and ecosystems and over time. Further, by maintaining soil archives and a catalog of their microbial communities, we will gain a better understanding of how soil organisms are distributed throughout the world, which could provide valuable insight into limitations on crop survival and production as new soils and/or locations are cultivated.