Soil Biodiversity

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013, Saadia Iqbal, You Think!, The World Bank,   "The Youth Guide to Biodiversity" 1st Edition (Chapter 6) Youth and United Nations Global Alliance. Reproduced with permission.

Chapter 6. Verbatim.

It might not sound like an exciting place to live, but you’d be surprised how many living things chose soil as their home! Soil contains a myriad of organisms, such as earthworms, ants, termites, bacteria and fungi. In fact, a typical handful of garden soil contains billions to hundreds of billions of tiny soil micro-organisms!

Together, soil organisms contribute with a wide range of services to their ecosystems, such as improving the entry and storage of water, preventing erosion, improving plant nutrition, and breaking down organic matter. In addition, soil biodiversity influences the environment indirectly in many ways. For example, it helps regulate pest and disease occurrence in agricultural and natural ecosystems, and can also control or reduce environmental pollution. Soil is the second biggest carbon storehouse, after forests, with some soils, such as peat, actually storing more carbon than forests on a hectare‑by‑hectare basis.

What's Threatening Soil Biodiversity? 

The diversity of soil organisms is under threat from pollution, unsustainable agriculture, overgrazing, vegetation clearing, wildfires and poor management of irrigation. Converting grasslands or forests to cropped land results in rapid loss of soil carbon, which indirectly enhances climate change. Urbanisation and soil sealing – covering of land for housing, roads or other construction work – are also threats, because concrete ends up killing the life present in the soil beneath.

There are many other types of terrestrial biodiversity,including biodiversity in dry and sub-humid lands (see box: “Drylands Biodiversity”) and in wetlands (see Chapter 7). They each play an important part in our ecosystems’ healthy and productive functioning, and keep our Earth diverse and beautiful.