The Diversity Of Organisms In The Soil

Organisms and Soil Ecology

If our bodies were small enough to enter the tiny passages in the soil, we would discover a world populated by a wild array of creatures all fiercely competing for every leaf that  falls to the forest floor.  We would also find predators of every description lurking in the dark, some with fearsome jaws to snatch unwary victim, others whose jellylike bodies simply engulf and digest their hapless prey.

Variety of Organisms in soil - landscience.blogspot - Soil Science

We will learn how these organisms, both flora and fauna, interact with one another, what they eat, how they affect soil and how soil conditions affect them. The central theme will be how this community of organisms assimilates plant and animal residues and waste products, creating soil humus, recycling carbon and mineral nutrients and supporting plant growth.

Soil organisms are creatures that spend all or part of their lives in the soil environment. Every handful of soil is likely to contain billions of organisms, with representatives of nearly every phylum of living things.

Size of organisms

The animals (fauna) of the soil range in size from macrofauna (such as moles, earthworms and milipeds), through mesofauna (such as tiny springtails and mites), to microfauna (such as nematodes and single celled protozoans). Plants (flora) include the roots of higher plants, as well as microscopic algae and diatoms. Other microorganisms include fungi, bacteria and actinomycetes, which tend to predominate in terms of numbers, mass and metabolic capacity.

Types of diversity

This diversity is possible because of the nearly limitless variety of foods and the wide range of habitat conditions found in soils. Within a handful of soil there may be areas of good and poor aeration, high and low acidity, cool and warm temperatures, moist and dry conditions and localized concentrations of dissolved nutrients, organic substrates and competing organisms.

Variety of Organisms - landscience.blogspot - Soil Science

Aquatic ecologists have long considered a highly diverse community of aquatic organisms to indicate good water quality. In the same way, soil scientists are now using the concept to biological diversity as an indicator of soil quality.