Global prediction of agricultural soil antibiotic susceptibility and safe boundary for biota

Pervasive anthropogenic activities release substantial quantities of antibiotics into soils, damaging soil organisms, introducing antibiotic resistance, and thus jeopardizing the safe boundaries for biodiversity. Here, by applying advanced geospatial modeling and establishing the planetary boundary (PB), we estimated that, at the baseline year (2015), global agricultural soil antibiotic concentration is 122.0 μg kg^-1, within the PB of 153.7 μg kg^-1 beyond which the health of soil biota (including bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, and antibiotic-resistance genes) decreases dramatically. In ∼2070, soil antibiotic concentrations increase while the boundaries decrease from SSP1-RCP2.6, SSP2-RCP4.5 to SSP5-RCP8.5. Under SSP5-RCP8.5, global soil organisms face the adverse antibiotic pollution (148.9 μg kg^-1) that has transgressed the boundary (136.1 μg kg^-1). Our study reveals the geopolitical inequality arising from antibiotic susceptibility and highlights the urgent need of the sustainable development to avoid catastrophic consequences on global soil organisms.