Soil and Biological Diversity

Soils host a tremendous diversity of organisms that play fundamental roles in driving many ecological services on which the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems depend. In doing so, soil organisms, and their interactions with each other and with plants impact on a range of ecosystem services, including soil information and nutrient cycling, the production of food and fibre, climate regulation, disease and pest control.

The biodiversity of soil is immense compared to aboveground biodiversity, for example, ten grams of soil contains about 10,000,000,000 bacterial cells of more than 1,000,000 species. An estimated 360,000 species of animals are dwellers in soil. It has been estimated that the biodiversity of soil could make up as much as 25% of the total amount of described living species worldwide, although most of this diversity remains unknown. More articles coming...