Soil ecology
Soil ecology is the study of the interactions among
Overview
Soil is made up of a multitude of physical, chemical, and biological entities, with many interactions occurring among them. Soil is a variable mixture of broken and weathered minerals and decaying organic matter. Together with the proper amounts of air and water, it supplies, in part, sustenance for plants as well as mechanical support.
The diversity and abundance of
Features of the ecosystem
- Moisture is a major limiting factor on land. Terrestrial organisms are constantly confronted with the problem of dehydration. Transpiration or evaporation of water from plant surfaces is an energy dissipating process unique to the terrestrial environment.
- Temperature variations and extremes are more pronounced in the air than in the water medium.
- On the other hand, the rapid circulation of air throughout the globe results in a ready mixing and remarkably constant content of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
- Although soil offers solid support, air does not. Strong skeletons have been evolved in both land plants and animals and also special means of locomotion have been evolved in the latter.
- Land, unlike the ocean, is not continuous; there are important geographical barriers to free movement.
- The nature of the substrate, although important in water is especially vital in terrestrial environment. Soil, not air, is the source of highly variable nutrients; it is a highly developed ecological subsystem.
Soil fauna
Soil fauna is crucial to
Soils are complex systems and their complexity resides in their heterogeneous nature: a mixture of air, water, minerals, organic compounds, and living organisms. The spatial variation, both horizontal and vertical, of all these constituents is related to soil forming agents varying from micro to macro scales.
The majority of these organisms are
Macrofauna
Since all these drivers of biodiversity changes also operate above ground, it is expected that there must be some concordance of mechanisms regulating the spatial patterns and structure of both above and below ground communities. In support of this, a small-scale field study revealed that the relationships between
The lack of distinct
Not only spatial patterns of soil biodiversity are difficult to explain, but also its potential linkages to many soil processes and the overall ecosystem functioning remains under debate. For example, while some studies have found that reductions in the abundance and presence of soil organisms results in the decline of multiple ecosystem functions,
Microfauna
Recent advances are emerging from studying sub-organism level responses using environmental DNA [19] and various omics approaches, such as metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, proteomics and proteogenomics, are rapidly advancing, at least for the microbial world.[20] Metaphenomics has been proposed recently as a better way to encompass the omics and the environmental constraints.[21][2]
Soil food web
An incredible diversity of organisms make up the soil
There are many ways that the soil food web is an integral part of landscape processes.
Research
Research interests span many aspects of soil ecology and
Example research projects are to examine the biogeochemistry and microbial ecology of septic drain field soils used to treat domestic wastewater, the role of anecic earthworms in controlling the movement of water and nitrogen cycle in agricultural soils, and the assessment of soil quality in turf production.[22]
Of particular interest as of 2006[update] is to understand the roles and functions of
References
- ^ Access Science: Soil Ecology Archived 2007-03-12 at the Wayback Machine. Url last accessed 2006-04-06
- ^ doi:10.3389/fenvs.2018.00149. Material was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- .
- ISBN 978-0-19-957592-3.
- ^ PMID 20644639.
- .
- PMID 22006309.
- ^ S2CID 4456564.
- .
- S2CID 206559506.
- .
- PMID 24639507.
- S2CID 10933025.
- .
- S2CID 39362502.
- S2CID 4304004.
- S2CID 5120077.
- S2CID 102056683.
- S2CID 27384537.
- .
- S2CID 3377418.
- ^ Laboratory of Soil Ecology and Microbiology. Url last accessed 2006-04-18
Bibliography
- Adl, M.S. (2003). Adl, S. M (ed.). The Ecology of Soil Decomposition. CABI, UK. ISBN 978-0851996615.
- Coleman, D.C. & D.A. Crorsley, Jr. (2004). Fundamentals of Soil Ecology (2nd ed.). Academic Press. ISBN 978-0121797263.
- Killham, 1994, Soil Ecology, Cambridge University Press
- Metting, 1993,Soil Microbial Ecology, Marcel Dekker
External links
- "Soil Ecology Society". rutgers.edu. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
- Floor, J. Anthoni (2000). "Soil Ecology". Retrieved 2016-05-02.
- "Soil Ecology Section". Ecological Society of America. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
- Yahoo! Soil Ecology Directory. Url last accessed 2006-04-18