**1. Introduction**

Global change is a hot topic of our days. Briefly, it could be defined as the sum of effects resulting from interactions between climate change and anthropogenic drivers. This phenomenon continues to grow in amplitude in the most part as a consequence of anthropogenic activities. Soil, a key environmental compartment that sustains life on earth and human development, it seems to be a fragile terrestrial ecosystem component in facing the challenges raised by global change. In its interplay with other environmental compartments under the pressure of global change, the soil could be at the same time both a contributor to as well a recipient of the impacts and factors of global change. However, at moment, under the challenge of global change drivers, the soil is considered as the least understood component due to its heterogeneity and complexity of it as properties, functioning, and provided services.

Now, global change is a phenomenon that happens, and its consequences on the ecosystem and delivered ecosystem services are predicted to continue even in future. As phenomenon, global change is the sum of end results between interactions of drivers and effects of changes in climate patterns and anthropogenic activities.

**Figure 1.**

*Soil challenges under interactive effects between anthropogenic and climate change drivers.*

**Figure 1** presents soil faced challenges under the interactive effects between the main anthropogenic and climate change drivers.

Drivers are defined by Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as a natural or anthropogenic factor that induces a change in an ecosystem either directly or indirectly [1]. While *direct drivers* influence ecosystem processes without any doubt, *indirect drivers* usually generate an alteration on one or more direct drivers, thus acting more diffusely.

Ecosystem and delivered ecosystem service changes are usually caused by multiple interacting drivers (direct and/or indirect). They could interact at a multi-level scale, including spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. Therefore, global change drivers can impact ecosystems and consequently ecosystem services both over time, levels of organization, or intermittently [2].

Soil is a key resource for life on earth, acting as a provider of essential raw materials, promoter for human activities, and habitat and gene pool of biodiversity. These global phenomena impact the soil environment, changing its properties, and consequently related biota. The development of soil and its properties takes place most of the time in the presence of living organisms. Soil biodiversity is complex, including diverse micro, meso, and macrofauna and flora with a complex role in soil formation, functioning, and properties. Hereby, soil fauna diversity like invertebrates (earthworms, termites, etc.) modify soil physical and chemical properties [3], while grazers concentrate nutrients through dung middens [4]. Similarly, plants are the main source of organic carbon and also are geochemical pumps that return to soil bio-essential elements through litterfall and degradation [5, 6]. The amount and the

#### *Global Change Drivers Impact on Soil Microbiota: Challenges for Maintaining Soil… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.111585*

distribution depth of organic carbon and essential elements are influenced by plant species [7]. Soil microbiota impact too soil's chemical and physical properties through the quality and quantity of organic compounds that they release, as well as through the biochemical reactions that they mediate [8].

Changes in soil properties due to global change is expected to impact biodiversity also. Modification or alteration in structure (exclusion or introduction of organisms or species), as well as in abundance of biota, could have also a reversible impact on the connected environment (property, functioning), ecosystem, and delivery of ecosystem services. However, soil ecosystem change is the after-effect of a large number of interactions between drivers. Whereas a considerable number of drivers are global, the current assemblage and interactions that bring about an ecosystem are more or less specific to a particular region or place. Although the influence on soil properties by higher-order plants [9, 10] and animals [11, 12] was well documented, a clear view on the potential influence of microbiota on soil properties is less profound. The reason is due to the difficulty of isolation and identification of species, for example., at moment only 1% of soil bacteria can be cultured. Similarly, there is minor knowledge of how microbiota structure and abundance could be influenced by global change drivers. Know-how on the relationship between global change drivers—soil microbiota—soil properties and functioning nexus are important when soil is accounted as a basic environmental compartment that serves us with various supporting, provisioning, and regulating ecosystem services, and when the way and the intensity of the response of soil system to global change are directly dependent to ecosystem dynamics.

Global change influences soil, and this in turn will impact global change further. Considering the time that is involved in soil formation, made it to be considered as a finite and non-renewable resource. This is the reason why is very important to understand how global change drivers put pressure on it in order to could conserve and protect its properties.

Ecosystem services refer to goods and/or services provided by an ecosystem. Soil functions are directly involved in the support and delivery of ecosystem services. Soil well-functioning depends on soil's physicochemical and biological properties. Changes in any of these properties could contribute either to decline or enhancement of provision with ecosystem services. Anthropogenic and climate change-related drivers are acknowledged to change soil physicochemical properties, which are supposed to influence soil biota. This could change also the soil biological properties. Alteration of soil properties could reduce or change soil functioning thus causing loss or alteration of provided ecosystem services.
