In every habitat there are many thousands of small organisms who are eating, being eaten, breaking down organic matter, burrowing, pollinating, fixing nitrogen and a myriad of other tasks that contribute to healthy ecosystems. In fact, at least 99% of biological diversity is either invertebrate or microbe and, in terrestrial habitats, a large proportion of this diversity resides for all or part of the time in the soil.

The conventional approach to biodiversity assessment is to complete vegetation surveys, trap some mammals and maybe record bird or frog calls. Unfortunately this misses the bulk of biodiversity, the organisms that are collectively a resource, a provider of critical ecosystem services and an indicator of ecosystem health.

Recently staff at the Key Centre for Biodiversity and Bioresources at Macquarie University have combined some pragmatic thinking and information technology into a system called biotrack^® that delivers fast solutions to assessment and monitoring of invertebrate biodiversity. We have overcome problems of taxonomy, the sheer volume of material and data management to include the bulk of biodiversity in our measurements of biodiversity difference.

Now commercially available through Biotrack Australia Pty Ltd, the biotrack^® system has been used to decide if biological composition has changed, reached a target value or has been affected by management practices. These results appear quickly enough to make a difference to environmental and conservation planning for agencies and businesses. Here we consider the costs and benefits of measuring the diversity of soil invertebrates to provide objective information for improved soil management.