Nature conservation literature and policy instruments mainly focus on the impacts of human development and the benefits of nature conservation for oceans and aboveground terrestrial organisms (e.g., birds and plants) and processes (e.g., food production), but these efforts almost completely ignore the majority of terrestrial biodiversity that is unseen and living in the soil (1). Little is known about the conservation status of most soil organisms and the effects of nature conservation policies on soil systems. Yet like “canaries in the coal mine,” when soil organisms begin to disappear, ecosystems will soon start to underperform, potentially hindering their vital functions for humankind. Soil biodiversity and its ecosystem functions thus require explicit consideration when establishing nature protection priorities and policies and when designing new conservation areas. To inform such efforts, we lay out a global soil biodiversity and ecosystem function monitoring framework to be considered in the context of the post-2020 discussions of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). To support this framework, we suggest a suite of soil ecological indicators based on essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) (2) (see the figure and table S3) that directly link to current global targets such as the ones established under the CBD, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Paris Agreement (table S1).

自然保护文献和政策工具主要关注人类发展的影响以及自然保护对海洋和地上陆地生物（例如鸟类和植物）和过程（例如粮食生产）的好处，但是这些努力几乎完全忽略了大多数看不见并生活在土壤中的陆地生物多样性（1）。对于大多数土壤生物的保护状况以及自然保护政策对土壤系统的影响知之甚少。然而，就像“煤矿中的金丝雀”一样，当土壤生物开始消失时，生态系统将很快开始表现不佳，从而有可能阻碍其对人类的重要功能。因此，在制定自然保护优先事项和政策以及设计新的保护区时，需要明确考虑土壤生物多样性及其生态系统功能。为了为此类努力提供信息，我们提出了一个全球土壤生物多样性和生态系统功能监测框架，该框架将在《生物多样性公约》（CBD）的2020年后讨论中予以审议。为了支持该框架，我们建议根据基本生物多样性变量（EBV）制定一套土壤生态指标（2）（参见图和表S3）与当前的全球目标直接相关，例如根据《生物多样性公约》，《可持续发展目标》和《巴黎协定》确定的目标（表S1）。