The Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI) and EcoFINDERS are pleased to announce the First GSBI Conference - Assessing Soil Biodiversity and its Role for Ecosystem Services, to be held in Dijon, France, December 2-5th, 2014. This will be a dynamic international meeting summarizing the current state of knowledge and recent advancements in the science of soil biodiversity.
The conference will provide a venue to meet and discuss current research efforts in soil biodiversity and its links to earth processes, and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration. The goal of this meeting is promote scientific research on the role of soil biodiversity for ecosystem functions and ecosystem services, and to integrate such understanding into international environmental agendas, sustainable policy and land management decisions.
Conference Theme
Confirmed Keynote Speakers include:
Dr. Noah Fierer, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Ladislav Miko, Deputy Director General – DG Health and Consumers, European Commission
Dr. Laurent Philippot, INRA, Dijon, FR
Dr. Kate Scow, University of California, Davis, USA
Dr. Wim van der Putten, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Wageningen, NL
Dr. David Wardle, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umea, SE
Dr. Junling Zhang, China Agricultural University Beijing, CH
The Earth’s soils are living, dynamic interfaces that are habitats for millions of microbial and animal species. The activities of soil biota are critical to the well-being of human societies because their activities underpin the delivery of major ecosystem services. Without soil biota, the soil resource as we know would not exist, and the services that we rely on for sustainability would all but cease.
To meet the challenges of global changes while sustaining the productivity of our natural and managed lands requires not only knowing the role of soil biota, but also implementing that knowledge. It is therefore of utmost importance that we effectively synthesize and incorporate the growing scientific knowledge on the provision of vital ecosystem services by soil biodiversity into future regional and national management and policy plans.
Attendance will be open to all and will be on a first come, first serve basis. Presentations will also be open to the public in the form of oral and poster presentations. The conference is chaired by Dr. Diana H. Wall of Colorado State University and Scientific Chair of the GSBI.

http://www.gsbiconference.elsevier.com/