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Further, seed banks can affect the potential rate and even direction of evolutionary change because they increase the mean generation times of populations 5, 6. Indeed, seed banks support population persistence and biodiversity maintenance through temporal storage effects 3 and increasing the gene pool 4, thereby maintaining a diverse but hidden species pool belowground that hedges against risk of environmental change 3. Ecological and evolutionary theory recognizes seed banks as ‘biodiversity reservoirs’. Seed banks, which include all viable seeds on or in the soil, vary spatially and temporally 2. Thereby, they represent a critical but hidden stock for potential future plant diversity on Earth. Soil seed banks are vital for the long-term survival of individual plant species and the diversity and dynamics of plant communities 1. Our assessment provides quantitative evidence of how environmental conditions shape the distribution of soil seed banks, which enables a more accurate prediction of the resilience and vulnerabilities of plant communities and biomes under global changes. Moreover, global mapping revealed clear spatial patterns for soil seed banks worldwide for instance, low densities may render currently species-rich low latitude biomes (such as tropical rain-forests) less resilient to major disturbances. Further, climate and soil were the major determinants of seed bank diversity, while net primary productivity and soil characteristics were the main predictors of seed bank density. Random forest models showed that absolute latitude was an important predictor for diversity of soil seed banks. Here we compiled and analyzed a global dataset consisting of 15,698 records of species diversity and density for soil seed banks in natural plant communities worldwide to quantify their environmental determinants and global patterns. Soil seed banks represent a critical but hidden stock for potential future plant diversity on Earth.