Résumé
Soil biodiversity, and particularly soil fauna, drives essential soil functions leading to crucial ecosystem services. Many research activities over the last decades have produced data, which are however widely dispersed and not easily available, hence their re-usage is limited. Here, we aim to collect a maximum of already published or available data on soil fauna (micro-meso-and macro-fauna) from the European territory, by creating the first comprehensive 'European Atlas of Soil Fauna'. With this initiative, we envision a vibrant collaborative effort in which 'data owners' become 'co-creators' of the Atlas by contributing their (published) data to an overall soil fauna data set. The data set will be used to produce information and maps on soil fauna distribution and diversity across Europe, to support research, policy, education, conservation and monitoring activities.