Soil organisms Targeted loci environmental

Forest ecosystems represent a valuable natural resource in Sweden, providing not only timber but also supporting a rich diversity of organisms. The Swedish Forest Agency states that the current biological functions of forest soil have to be maintained, but also stresses an urgent need for new biological indicators. In spite of their key role in the boreal forest biome, systematic monitoring of soil biota is currently lacking.Fungal communities in boreal forest soils are particularly species rich, but are currently under alteration (e.g. induced by forestry), with many species declining and red-listed. Environmental DNA related-techniques provide a good representation of the more abundant fungal species that are functionally important for soil processes. Little is known about the distribution and functional importance of bacteria and archaea in boreal forest soils, let alone the anthropogenic impacts on these taxa, and monitoring without DNA based methods is futile. Soil invertebrate assemblages are reported to be especially sensitive to forest management and other anthropogenic disturbances, and are regularly used as 'bioindicators'. Although there are well-established methods for assessment of soil faunal communities, morphological identification is time consuming and not possible in a high-throughput context, whereas environmental DNA may offer cost-efficient ways forward.