『Abstract
This paper discusses the study of taxonomic distance and pedodiversity
by (1) deriving taxonomic distances for the World Reference Base
for Soil Resources (WRB), (2) calculating pedodiversity indices
at the global scale using the soil map of the world at a scale
1:25M, and (3) comparing traditional diversity measures which
are based on abundance of soil individuals to measures that are
based on taxonomic distance. Based on dominant identifiers in
the WRB soil groups, taxonomic distances were derived between
the soil groups and plotted in feature space. Using this information
the soil's mean taxonomic distance for the world was calculated.
The mean taxonomic distance combines the abundance and taxonomic
relationship between soil groups and appears to be a useful index
of pedodiversity. There is a good relation between mean taxonomic
distance and climate or soil classes; areas with extreme temperatures
and precipitation have the lowest pedodiversity. It was observed
that areas with more detailed soil mapping units exhibit the largest
pedodiversity and it was concluded that the measure of pedodiversity
depends amongst others on the detail of the soil survey in an
area.
Keywords: World soil map; Soil diversity; Soil mapping; World
Reference Base; Soil classification; Climate』
1. Introduction
2. Methods
2.1. Taxonomic distance for WRB soil groups
2.2. Pedodiversity of the FAO Soil Map of the World
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Pedodiversity by land area and climatic regions
3.2. Mapping pedodiversity
3.3. Pedodiversity and map quality
4. Conclusions
References