Phylogeny is an ecologically meaningful way to classify plants and animals, as closely related taxa frequently have similar ecological characteristics, functional traits and effects on ecosystem processes. For bacteria, however, phylogeny has been argued to be an unreliable indicator of an organism’s ecology owing to evolutionary processes more common to microbes such as gene loss and lateral gene transfer, as well as convergent evolution.

The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils has completed the first State of the World's Soil Resources Report. Globally soil erosion was identified as the gravest threat, leading to deteriorating water quality in developed regions and to lowering of crop yields in many developing regions. We need to increase nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer use in infertile tropical and semi-tropical soils – the regions where the most food insecurity among us are found – while reducing global use of these products overall.

Soil erosion by water is one of the major threats to soils in the European Union, with a negative impact on ecosystem services, crop production, drinking water and carbon stocks. The European Commission's Soil Thematic Strategy has identified soil erosion as a relevant issue for the European Union, and has proposed an approach to monitor soil erosion.