Underground ‘Rave’ a Sign Soil Is Happy
August 16, 2024 | Source: Flinders University | by News Desk
Barely audible to human ears, healthy soils produce a cacophony of sounds in many forms – a bit like an underground rave concert of bubbles and clicks.
Special recordings made by Flinders University ecologists in Australia show this chaotic mixture of soundscapes can be a measure of the diversity of tiny living animals in the soil, which create sounds as they move and interact with their environment.
With 75% of the world’s soils degraded, the future of the teeming community of living species that live underground face a dire future without restoration, says microbial ecologist Dr Jake Robinson, from the Frontiers of Restoration Ecology Lab in the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders University.
This new field of research aims to investigate the vast, teeming hidden ecosystems where almost 60% of the Earth’s species live, he says.
“Restoring and monitoring soil biodiversity has never been more important.