1. This article reviews the literature on the relationship between soils and ecosystem services, aiming to contribute to the scientific understanding of their interrelations.
2. Most studies have focused on provisioning and regulating ES relating to soil physico-chemical properties, with few studies focusing on cultural services and supporting services.
3. The article suggests that future ES research should focus on exploring soil functional diversity of soil biota and the spatial aspects of soil properties to lower level ecosystem services.
The article is generally reliable in its presentation of the current state of research linking soils to ecosystem services, providing a comprehensive overview of existing studies and their findings. The authors provide a clear explanation of the concept of ecosystem services, as well as an analysis of how these have been studied in relation to soils over time. The authors also make several recommendations for future research directions in this area, which are based on their review of existing literature.
However, there are some potential biases in the article that should be noted. For example, while the authors do mention cultural services and supporting services related to soils, they focus primarily on provisioning and regulating ES relating to soil physico-chemical properties. This could lead readers to believe that these two types of ES are more important than other types when it comes to soils, which may not be accurate. Additionally, while the authors do recommend further exploration into soil functional diversity and spatial aspects related to lower level ecosystem services, they do not provide any evidence or examples for why this is necessary or how it would benefit research in this area.
In conclusion, overall this article provides a reliable overview of existing research linking soils to ecosystem services but there are some potential biases that should be taken into consideration when reading it.