soil organism

soil organism, any organism inhabiting the soil during part or all of its life. Soil organisms, which range in size from microscopic cells that digest decaying organic material to small mammals that live primarily on other soil organisms, play an important role in maintaining fertility, structure, drainage, and aeration of soil. They also break down plant and animal tissues, releasing stored nutrients and converting them into forms usable by plants. Some soil organisms are pests. Among the soil organisms that are pests of crops are nematodes, slugs and snails, symphylids, beetle larvae, fly larvae, caterpillars, and root aphids. Some soil organisms cause rots, some release substances that inhibit plant growth, and others are hosts for organisms that cause animal diseases.

Since most of the functions of soil organisms are beneficial, earth with large numbers of organisms in it tends to be fertile; one square metre of rich soil can harbour as many as 1,000,000,000 organisms.

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Ecosystems

Soil organisms are commonly divided into five arbitrary groups according to size, the smallest of which are the protists—including bacteria, actinomycetes, and algae. Next are the microfauna, which are less than 100 microns in length and generally feed upon other microorganisms. The microfauna include single-celled protozoans, some smaller flatworms, nematodes, rotifers, and tardigrades (eight-legged invertebrates). The mesofauna are somewhat larger and are heterogeneous, including creatures that feed on microorganisms, decaying matter, and living plants. The category includes nematodes, mites, springtails (wingless insects so called for the springing organ which enables them to leap), the insectlike proturans, which feed on fungi, and the pauropods.

The fourth group, the macrofauna, are also quite diverse. The most common example is the potworm, a white, segmented worm that feeds on fungi, bacteria, and decaying plant material. The group also includes slugs, snails, and millipedes, which feed on plants, and centipedes, beetles and their larvae, and the larvae of flies, which feed on other organisms or on decaying matter.

Megafauna constitute the largest soil organisms and include the largest earthworms, perhaps the most important creatures that live in the topsoil. Earthworms pass both soil and organic matter through their guts, in the process aerating the soil, breaking up the litter of organic material on its surface, and moving material vertically from the surface to the subsoil. This is extremely important to soil fertility, and it develops the structure of the soil as a matrix for plants and other organisms. It has been estimated that earthworms completely turn over the equivalent of all the soil on the planet to a depth one inch (2.5 cm) every 10 years. Some vertebrates are also in the megafauna category; these include all sorts of burrowing animals, such as snakes, lizards, gophers, badgers, rabbits, hares, mice, and moles.

One of the most important roles of soil organisms is breaking up the complex substances in decaying plants and animals so that they can be used again by living plants. This involves soil organisms as catalysts in a number of natural cycles, among the most prominent being the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycles.

The carbon cycle begins in plants, which combine carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with water to make plant tissues such as leaves, stems, and fruits. Animals eat the plants and convert the tissues into animal tissues. The cycle is completed when the animals die and their decaying tissues are eaten by soil organisms, a process that releases carbon dioxide.

Proteins are the basic stuff of organic tissues, and nitrogen is an essential element of all proteins. The availability of nitrogen in forms that plants can use is a basic determinant of the fertility of soils; the role of soil organisms in facilitating the nitrogen cycle is therefore of great importance. When a plant or animal dies, soil organisms break up the complex proteins, polypeptides, and nucleic acids in their bodies and produce ammonium, ions, nitrates, and nitrites that plants then use to build their body tissues.

Both bacteria and blue-green algae can fix nitrogen directly from the atmosphere, but this is less vital to plant development than the symbiotic relationship between the bacteria genus Rhizobium and leguminous plants and certain trees and shrubs. In return for secretions from their host that encourage their growth and multiplication, Rhizobia fix nitrogen in nodules of the host plant’s roots, providing nitrogen in a form usable by the plant.

Soil organisms also participate in the sulfur cycle, mostly by breaking up the naturally abundant sulfur compounds in the soil so that this vital element is available to plants. The smell of rotten eggs so common in swamps and marshes is due to the hydrogen sulfide produced by these microorganisms.

Though soil organisms have become less important in agriculture due to the development of synthetic fertilizers, they play a vital role in woodlands, especially in the creation of humus, a finely separated complex of organic materials composed of decaying leaves and other vegetable matter.

When a leaf falls it cannot be eaten by most animals. After the water-soluble components of the leaf are leached out, fungi and other microflora attack its structure, making it soft and pliable. Now the litter is palatable to a wide variety of invertebrates, which fragment it into a mulch. The multipedes, wood lice, fly larvae, springtails, and earthworms leave the litter relatively unchanged organically, but they create a suitable substrate for the growth of the primary decomposers that break it into simpler chemical compounds. There is also a group called secondary decomposers (some creatures, such as the springtails, are in both groups), which break it down even further.

So the organic matter of leaves is constantly being digested and redigested by waves of increasingly smaller organisms. Eventually the humic substance that remains may be as little as one-fourth of the original organic matter of the litter. Gradually this humus is mixed into the soil by burrowing animals (such as moles, rabbits, etc.) and by the action of the earthworms.

Though some soil organisms can become pests—especially when a single crop is grown repeatedly in the same field, encouraging the proliferation of organisms that prey on their roots—by and large they are essential elements in the process of life, death, and decay, which rejuvenates the environment.