Ecosystems Could Be Restored By Donor-Soil Microbes

The scientist.com reports that microbes can speed up the restoration of farmland. The dryness of our atmosphere coupled with global warming is adversely affecting ecosystems in areas that experience a lot of heat. 

of course, seeds of plants were also present in the donor soil.” Study co-author study coauthor Jasper Wubs reported to several news outlets, “But our study shows that it is in fact the soil organisms—such as the bacteria, fungi, and roundworms—which determine the direction of ecosystem restoration.”

He conducted a lot of tests with his colleagues from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology. His main focus was soil inoculation and the idea that soil that has been overfilled or dried up for a while can be restored and used to create new plant life. They removed soil samples from a huge field in Reijerscamp in the Netherlands. The plot of land had been farmed for over 60 years and left in a dry rubble, virtually unusable by anyone who hoped to farm it. These types of things are happening in communities across the world. Topsoil is abused in a lot of places for agricultural reasons, to grow food or to feed livestock that eventually becomes food. Researchers said that microbial communities and their compositions have changed quite a bit in the past 60 years. With the sun getting hotter and resources getting slimmer it seems that people don’t really care about the destruction of soil.

“This is pretty cutting-edge research. I hadn’t heard of anyone doing soil transplants before!” Exclaimed Neiunna Reed-Jones, who serves as a fellow at the Oak Science and Education center. Her main area of study was pathogens in agricultural environments. She seemed to be surprised that soil transplants went over so well in the study, because nobody had ever thought to use them before since most climates can’t actually support them. 

“Biocontrol, plant growth promotion, and nutrition by microbial inoculants have a long tradition in agriculture, therefore it’s not surprising that the soil transfer worked well.” said Gabriele Berg. She primarily studies at the Graz University of Technology in Austria. She wasn’t involved with the work but she fully supported it. The proof of this important concept made her very intrigued to see how the study would conclude. The Scientist reported that she was thrilled that people understood the importance of the soil and the microbiota within it.

All scientists who were made aware of these experiments made it clear that they were excited about the promise for agricultural advancement. The transplants weren’t very “productive” and didn’t yield any crazy changes, but it may prove to be useful because of plant proliferation and management of the nutrients within the soil.