Description:
Because having a wide variety of species on earth is essential forhuman health and our economy, conservation areas have beenestablished worldwide. These conservation efforts mostly focus on“beauties,” such as pandas or tigers. Many other species are not ascharismatic and thus merely considered “beasts.” Many “beasts” liveinvisible lives in the soil but are extremely important for mankind.We asked whether current conservation efforts based on savingthe “beauties” can help to automatically protect the “beasts.” Inother words, is there high biological diversity in the soil at locationswith high aboveground biodiversity? We mapped aboveground andbelowground biodiversity across the world and found that there aremany areaswhere aboveground biodiversity is high and belowgroundbiodiversity is low, or the other way around. Our results suggestthat conserving the “beauties” may not be enough to protect the “beasts.” We need to consider life belowground when planning newconservation areas.