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Soil microbial communities experience shifts in the diversity and composition during dehydration and rehydration cycles. [5] Soil moisture affects carbon cycling a phenomenon known as Birch effect. [6] [7] Temperature variations in soil are influenced by factors such as seasonality, environmental conditions, vegetation, and soil composition.
Soil biology is the study of microbial and faunal activity and ecology in soil. Soil life, soil biota, soil fauna, or edaphon is a collective term that encompasses all organisms that spend a significant portion of their life cycle within a soil profile, or at the soil-litter interface.
Soil is the habitat for many organisms: the major part of known and unknown biodiversity is in the soil, in the form of earthworms, woodlice, millipedes, centipedes, snails, slugs, mites, springtails, enchytraeids, nematodes, protists), bacteria, archaea, fungi and algae; and most organisms living above ground have part of them or spend part of ...
Pores (the spaces that exist between soil particles) provide for the passage and/or retention of gasses and moisture within the soil profile.The soil's ability to retain water is strongly related to particle size; water molecules hold more tightly to the fine particles of a clay soil than to coarser particles of a sandy soil, so clays generally retain more water. [2]
Over time the soil will develop a profile that depends on the intensities of biota and climate. While a soil can achieve relative stability of its properties for extended periods, [117] the soil life cycle ultimately ends in soil conditions that leave it vulnerable to erosion. [122]
Soil salinity has localised and regional effects on biodiversity, ranging, for example, from changes in plant composition and survival at a local discharge site through to regional changes in water quality and aquatic life. While very saline soil is not preferred for growing crops, it is important to note that many crops can grow in more saline ...
Plants and animals utilize soil for food and shelter, disturbing the upper soil layers and transporting chemically weathered rock called saprolite from the lower soil depths to the surface. [3] Terrestrial bioturbation is important in soil production, burial, organic matter content, and downslope transport.
Soil regeneration is the reformation of degraded soil through biological, chemical, and or physical processes. [ 2 ] When productivity declined in the low-clay soils of northern Thailand, farmers initially responded by adding organic matter from termite mounds , but this was unsustainable in the long-term.