Abstract
Soil biota play an essential role in delivering key ecosystem goods and services, and are both directly and indirectly responsible for many important functions (nutrient cycling, soil structure, water storage). European Union (EU) has underlined the interest of taking into account this biological compartment. EU has asked to develop biological researches in soil management policies, by characterizing biological species and biological functions of some soil organisms. To answer this request and make a first state at regional scale of soil biodiversity in relation to land use and pedoclimatic parameters, a French program « RMQS BioOiv » was developed on the 109 sites of Soil Quality Monitoring Network (RMQS) in Brittany. A large national research network (12 research teams) supported the program, that undertook the study of several biological parameters such as macrofauna (earthworms, total macro-invertebrates), mesofauna (Acarina and Collembola), microfauna (nematodes), and microflora (microbial biomass, community structure and functional genes), as well as biological activity parameters (Humus Index). So, this program leaned on RMQS which was developed at national scale to monitor physico-chemical soil parameters and land-use managements by using a systematic sampling (regular grid 16 X 16 km) covering the whole French territory. The link between these two programs, working on the same sampling grid, should allow the study of biological parameters in the light of soil and agricultural characteristics, and thus the definition of biological descriptors of soil quality. The objectives of this paper are i) to present the RMQS BioOiv program is terms of sampling design and protocols, ii) to describe the data management and treatment, and iii) to show some results as a first instance of the data analysis to be carried out in this program. Results were obtained from the analysis of 109 sites sampled in 2006 and 2007 across the Brittany Region, and showed the spatial distribution and density of the different biological groups.