Soil is essential for animal life because it serves as both habitat and resource, supporting growth, health, and survival for countless animal species. Key points
- Habitat and shelter: Many animals spend all or part of their lives in soil, using it for protection from temperature extremes, predators, and harsh weather. This includes microfauna like nematodes and mites, as well as larger invertebrates and burrowing mammals. This sheltering role helps species persist in environments with wide fluctuations in moisture and temperature.
- Food webs and nutrient cycling: Soil hosts a vast diversity of organisms—bacteria, fungi, insects, worms—that decompose organic matter and recycle nutrients. These processes make essential nutrients available to plants, which then support herbivores and higher trophic levels, forming the base of terrestrial food webs. Healthy soil thus indirectly sustains animals through primary production.
- Water regulation and availability: Soil structure influences how water moves and is stored in the landscape. Good soil helps retain moisture and provides water for plants and herbivores, while also filtering and regulating runoff. By maintaining soil moisture, soil health supports animals during dry periods and contributes to stable ecosystems.
- Ecosystem services and resilience: Soil organisms contribute to pest and disease suppression, improving plant health and resilience of ecosystems. They also contribute to carbon storage, which supports long-term ecosystem stability, benefiting animal communities that rely on stable habitats.
- Biodiversity and ecosystem engineering: Soils harbor a large portion of Earth’s biodiversity, from microorganisms to larger soil engineers like earthworms and burrowing mammals. These organisms modify soil structure, aeration, and nutrient availability, creating habitats for other species and promoting healthy plant communities that feed wildlife.
Implications for animal life
- Biodiversity in soils underpins the diversity of aboveground wildlife by sustaining vegetation, soil-dwelling predators, pollinators, and scavengers.
- Disturbances to soil (over-plowing, pollution, erosion) can disrupt these networks, reducing food availability, habitat viability, and water quality, with cascading effects on animal populations.
- Conservation and sustainable land management that protect soil structure, organic matter, and microbial life support healthier animal communities and more resilient ecosystems.
If you’d like, I can tailor this explanation to a particular ecosystem (forest, grassland, desert) or focus on specific animal groups (insects, small mammals, birds).
