Summary
This review article by Banerjee and van der Heijden, published in Nature Reviews Microbiology, synthesises current understanding of soil microbiomes within the One Health paradigm, which integrates human, animal and environmental health. The authors likely argue that soil microbial diversity underpins critical ecosystem services — including food production, pathogen suppression and antibiotic resistance regulation — and that its decline poses risks across all three health domains. The paper is expected to provide a conceptual framework for how land management practices influence soil microbiome function with downstream consequences for planetary health.
UK applicability
Although global in scope, the findings are highly applicable to UK agriculture policy and practice, particularly in the context of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, which incentivises soil health improvements. UK soils face documented losses of microbial diversity through intensive land use, making the One Health framing directly relevant to domestic policy debates on sustainable farming and antimicrobial resistance.
Key measures
Soil microbial diversity indices; disease suppression potential; nutrient cycling capacity; antimicrobial resistance gene prevalence; human and animal health linkages (qualitative and synthesised quantitative evidence)
Outcomes reported
The review examines how soil microbial communities influence plant productivity, disease suppression, nutrient cycling, and human and animal health outcomes within a One Health framework. It synthesises evidence on the mechanisms by which soil microbiome degradation threatens ecosystem services and explores pathways linking soil biodiversity to broader public health.
Topic tags
Dig deeper with Pulse AI.
Pulse AI has read the whole catalogue. Ask about this record, its theme, or how the findings apply to UK farming and policy — every answer cites the underlying studies.