What is soil life?

Soil quality is regarded as an integrated set of biological, chemical and physical properties and processes in a soil. Organic soil quality largely boils down to functional agrobiodiversity. The commonly held hypothesis is that a healthy soil has high functional agrobiodiversity. Loss of agrobiodiversity threatens many soil functions such as crop production, formation of soil structure, nutrient supply and water balance.

A quarter of the Earth’s biodiversity is in the soil. There are more organisms in a teaspoon of fertile soil than there are people on the planet.

All organisms in the soil are connected in different ways. This interconnectedness is called a food web. Below ground it is a question of eat or be eaten, just like above ground. Roughly speaking, the soil food web can be said to have a tiered structure.