Understanding and managing soil health impacts to protect soil-dependent pollinators (ProPollSoil)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Mission
Theme: Soil health and food
Destination: Soil health and food
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Ireland,Italy,Greece,Canada,United Kingdom,Poland,Denmark,France,Spain,Norway,Belgium,Serbia,Hungary,Switzerland
Call: Soil health, pollinators and key ecosystem functions (HORIZON-MISS-2024-SOIL-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-10-01
End date: 2029-09-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 7719160.32
EU funding (EUR): 7719159.32
Participants: 25
Project status: SIGNED

ProPollSoil aims to enhance our understanding of the relationship between soil health and soil-dependent pollinators, which spend part of their life cycle in or on soil and play vital roles in ecosystems and agriculture, providing services like pollination, decomposition and nutrient cycling. We specifically focus on lesser-known species and groups, such as ground-nesting bees, wasps, hoverflies, ants or beetles. ProPollSoil will identify how intensive soil management practices and contamination, threatening both pollinator and soil health, contribute to the decline of soil-dependent pollinators. This knowledge will be used to inform sustainable soil practices and guide conservation and restoration efforts. We will (i) conduct a pan-European field sampling campaign, including SOB4ES sites, (ii) develop novel monitoring methods, including eDNA and AI, (iii) perform lab studies to fill existing knowledge gaps, such as the role soil microbiota, (iv) assess intensive management, soil compaction and soil pollution as potential soil and pollinator threats within a co-creation research approach in nine Case Study Areas (CSAs), and (v) use different modelling approaches to produce EU-wide maps of soil substrate availability and hence pollinator suitability. Our multi-disciplinary team involves experts in soil science, pollinator ecology and biology, biodiversity monitoring, big data, social sciences, modelling and ecotoxicology. By contributing new knowledge and data on soil health and pollinator diversity, maps on pollinator and soil habitat quality and novel approaches for joint soil and pollinator monitoring to the Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe” and the EU Pollinators Initiative, “A New Deal for Pollinators“, ProPollSoil will support strategies for reducing soil pollution, improving soil structure, safeguarding pollinators and raising awareness of the importance of soil for pollinators. Our results will be shared with the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC) and inform the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO). ProPollSoil will collaborate closely with HORIZON projects like SOB4ES, RestPoll, BIOservicES and BUTTERFLY through data exchange and joint stakeholder and outreach campaigns and use of CSAs. Long-term impact will be ensured through shared sampling, outreach and data tools. Aligned with EU and global biodiversity strategies, ProPollSoil supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as halting biodiversity loss (SDG15, through providing best-practice guides aimed at conserving soil and pollinator health) and ensuring food security (SDG2, through improving soil and pollinator health). ProPollSoil will use a multi-actor approach, engaging stakeholders like farmers, industry, NGOs, citizens and municipalities, to ensure the co-creation of new knowledge on soil-pollinator interactions, while also promoting soil literacy and highlighting the essential role of healthy soils in maintaining pollinator populations and ecosystem resilience.

Keywords: pollinators,pollination,ecosystem services,pesticides,conservation genetics