Under Ground: How Creatures of Mud and Dirt Shape Our WorldIn childhood, the backyard, the flowerbed, the beach, puddles, lakes, and streams are infinitely fascinating. It is a mistake to leave that "childish" fascination with mud behind. The soils of the Earth, whether underneath our feet or pressurized beneath tons of ocean water, hold life in abundance. A handful of garden dirt may harbor more species than the entire aboveground Amazon. The robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity made headlines as they searched the Martian landscape for signs of life. But while our eyes have been turned toward the skies, teeming beneath us and largely unexplored lies what Science magazine recently called the true "final frontier." A growing array of scientists is exploring life in soils and sediments, uncovering a living world alien to our own senses--and yet one whose integrity turns out to be crucial to life above ground. Yvonne Baskin takes the reader from the polar desert of Antarctica to the coastal rain forests of Canada, from the rangelands of Yellowstone National Park to the vanishing wetlands of the Mississippi River basin, from Dutch pastures to English sounds, and beyond. She introduces exotic underground creatures and shows us what scientists are learning about their contribution to sustaining a healthy world above ground. She also explores the alarming ways in which air pollution, trawl fishing, timber cutting, introductions of invasive species, wetland destruction, and the like threaten this underground diversity and how their loss, in turn, affects our own well being. Two-thirds of the world's biological diversity exists in soils and underwater sediments, and yet most of us remain unaware of these tiny multitudes that run the planet beneath the scenes. In Under Ground, Baskin reveals the startling ways in which that life, whether in our own back yards, in fields and forests, or in the furthest reaches of the Earth, is more significant and fascinating than we once imagined. |
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Contents
| 1 | |
Where Nematodes Are Lions | 14 |
Of Ferns Bears and Slime Molds | 38 |
The Power of Ecosystem Engineers | 58 |
Plowing the Seabed | 80 |
Microbes Muck and Dead Zones | 100 |
Fungi and the Fate of Forests | 121 |
Grazers Grass and Microbes | 142 |
Restoring Power to the Soil | 164 |
Epilogue | 188 |
Notes | 195 |
Acknowledgments | 227 |
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Common terms and phrases
aboveground activity agricultural Antarctic Antarctica areas Austen bacteria Bardgett belowground benthos biodiversity biological bioturbators burrowing carbon changes coastal crop dead zone decades denitrifiers diversity dry valleys earth earthworms ecologists Ecology ecosys effects fertility field fishing forest floor forestry Frank fungal global grass grassland grazing greenery growing gulf habitat Hale hyphae hypoxia impacts interactions land landscape layer litter marine microbes Mississippi Mitsch mushrooms mycorrhizal fungi National Park natural nematodes nitrate nitrogen nutrient cycling old-growth Online organic matter Outerbridge oxygen percent plant community plant species plowing polychaetes populations processes production Putten reduced restoration River roots samples Science scientists Scottnema seafloor sediment seedlings shrimp slime molds soil animals soil biodiversity soil community soil creatures soil ecologists Soil Ecology soil food web soils and sediments springtails surface sustain Taylor Valley termites there’s tiny trawling trees Trofymow tropical underground Wall Wardle wetlands What’s worms Yellowstone
Bibliographic information
| Title | Under Ground: How Creatures of Mud and Dirt Shape Our World |
| Author | Yvonne Baskin |
| Publisher | Island Press, 2006 |
| ISBN | 1597269387, 9781597269384 |
| Length | 246 pages |
| Subjects | › › Science / Environmental Science Science / General Science / Life Sciences / Microbiology |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |