THE SOIL ECOSYSTEM
When gardening in my small backyard in the city, I was always cautious
and careful, not knowing what bugs I would encounter. I would remind
myself, and the children around me, that we were invading their home,
so we could not kill any of them. After taking both the biology and
envioronmental classes, I started wondering why those organisms were in
the soil
anyway. What did they do there? Were they helpful to my garden or not?
Should I welcome them or try to get rid of them? From those classes I
learned that the organisms in an ecosytem all have a niche and ususally
interact with
each other. All living things need to take in nutrients, and the
plants play an important role in this, but so do bacteria and fungi. I
wondered what other organisms were in the soil and what their niche
was. This lead me to investigate the soil and the organisms that live
within it.
The following links will give you
plenty of information about the soil ecosystem. ENJOY!
Soil
Organisms (Middle School
Level)
Soil
Organisms (College Level)
Soil
Systems (College Level)