Life, a recent BBC nature documentary series, is a showcase of the diversity of the natural world and the extraordinary behaviour of living things. It seems that nature never fails to amaze the curious investigator; be it far, close or even underfoot.

“We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” - Leonardo da Vinci.

Yes, underfoot is the soil I want to talk about, which one of my professors fondly refers to as The Book of Nature. He would say, “Open The Book of Nature and read… here and there a chapter might be incomplete or you may not understand, but you can always learn about the past, the present and the future.” Indeed, my limited reading has found a lot of interesting chapters…

What is soil?

Technically defined, soil is a "natural body comprised of solids (minerals and organic matter), liquid, and gases that occurs on the land surface. It is characterized by distinguishable horizons and or the ability to support rooted plants in a natural environment".

In a much more ecological way, it is the basic structure that supports life’s primary producers, i.e. plants. It does this as a result of its unique capability to act as a reservoir of nutrients/water and then to supply those intermittently to the plants - very much like a prudent bank.

This is not the soil’s only role; it also acts as a foundation for infrastructure and as a cornerstone in the health of ecosystems, for example, by locking pollutants and harbouring ultimate decomposers. As such, it is considered as one of the three most vital natural resources, alongside air and water.

Why care for soils?

Knowledge of the soil's physical, chemical and biological make-up is important for various disciplines. For example, nutrient levels are important for crop production, soil shear strength is crucial for engineering construction, and its structure could also be a deciding factor for football pitches! It also has more exotic uses, such as a beauty accessory (see the intricate hair-styling of the Hamer of Ethiopia, for instance).

In addition to their functional roles, soils have been part of our life and culture in many ways. A recent book, Soil and Culture by Edward R. Landa and Christian Feller, pays tribute to their impact from visual arts to religion and from archaeology to disease and warfare, and as a further example, many states in the U.S. have a specific soil that is legislatively established as a ‘state soil’, just like a state bird or flower.

What is the status of soils today?

Like most of earth’s resources, soils in all parts of the world are under threat. From the physical problem of compaction to erosion, and from salinity to pollution, are increasingly degrading our soils, with negative effects on ecosystems, economy and human health. In addition, global warming threatens to release carbon trapped in soil's organic matter, exacerbating climate change and having grave consequences for life on earth.

What's being done?

As the concern on soils has come to the forefront of public awareness, national and international bodies are moving towards legislation and action. For example, the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) recently published a revised strategy on soils.

Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, explains the importance of caring for soils.

Take it further

Educate yourself and others with the Soil Science Educational Resource.

Join surveys, for example, the OPAL national soil and earthworm survey.

Support those who are working to improve soils situation, such as the Soil Association.

Open University courses

Neighbourhood nature

Environment: journeys through a changing world

Other links

BBC Life

British Society for Soil Science

International Union of Soil Sciences

European Union Soil Thematic Strategy

About the author

Dr Yoseph Araya is a plant ecologist and associate lecturer at the Open University. He works on the biology and conservation of South African fynbos vegetation. Environmental education and the role of the public in research is one of his key interests.

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England has a population of 50 million mostly living in houses in towns and cities. Between these urban areas the countryside is mainly farmed using large machinery and very few people. Imagine an alternative situation where people are packed more densely into cities often in high rise blocks but where they also have a parcel of land about 600m² out in the countryside grouped together in small ‘villages’.

In Britain I suspect this alternative would not work for a whole range of reasons but in Russia it works on a huge scale, the people I spoke to did not know any families without these plots. The trains out of the city on Friday evening are packed with people carrying baskets to collect the fresh food they have grown on their plots. But nearly all of them have also built some kind of ‘summer house’ on their plot so they can stay overnight or as long as they want during the summer. In winter its usually too cold to stay and there is nothing to do on the plot.

Summer houses are usually rather basic but functional, providing somewhere to sleep and eat and are often built out of wood by the plot owners themselves with some help from their friends. They are certainly not the ostentatious huge Dachas that the new rich Russians are building.

Preserving Aronia berries.
[photo © copyright Mike Dodd]

An item frequently found on the plot is a small stove where pans of water are boiled to preserve fruit and vegetables for the winter. All the households I stayed in had a large store of produce from their plot(or their mother’s plot), it did not matter whether it was a city centre flat in Moscow or St Petersburg or a house in the countryside there was always that store of food that would last all year. As a tourist visiting Moscow and seeing the lines of Range Rovers outside posh restaurants this may seem strange but the vast majority of Russians are both rather poor and value the traditional healthy home produced food.

This year in Britain (well Milton Keynes at least) has been meagre for tree fruit after last year’s very heavy harvest. This often happens and is more pronounced in some varieties than others. However this was quite the opposite in the Moscow area with all the apple trees breaking their branches with the weight of fruit. We were living on fruit compote as this was the easiest way to deal with large numbers of apples quickly. One thing I did notice was that there were only one or two varieties of apples wherever we went. It seems that the severe cold winters mean that special very hardy rootstocks and hardy grafted on cultivars have to be used. There are a considerable range of these available but just like in Britain nowadays only one or two cultivars are widely grown except by keen gardeners or specialist orchards.

One regret from the recent trip was the lack of wild mushrooms. It should have been the peak of the season and my daughter had collected several kilograms just a few days previously which we were eating. But the hot 30^oC+ temperature, very patchy rain and sandy soils meant that the ground was too dry for fruiting bodies to develop. The one edible species I did find, hedgehog mushroom,turned out to cause a lot of suspicion among locals since it is not one they traditionally eat and has spines rather than gills under the cap. I am always amazed at how traditional knowledge gets passed down as to which species can be eaten and which are poisonous. When my daughter was collecting it was with her grandmother who pointed out the good edible types. I wonder what percentage of the UK population would go out and collect and eat wild mushrooms without any help from identification books or experts. 

On the evening two hour journey back to the city past many small villages of summer houses we watched more and more people pack into the train with baskets full of produce and even some with bags full of wild mushrooms. Obviously their patch of forest had benefited from thunderstorms earlier in the week. It was coming to the end of the season in late August and many of the plots were more or less bare waiting for the severe cold to come and kill pests and weeds. It seemed strange that the season was about to change so suddenly whereas back in Britian we have a long drawn out late summer, autumn and even the winter can have warm days, unfortunately ideal for all those nasty pests and weeds to survive on our allotments.

About the author

Doctor Mike Dodd is a research fellow in ecology at the Open University. He is also a keen naturalist: "Nearly all biologists nowadays only study one organism or even just a few molecules, but I have a plea that people should be aware of their whole environment."

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The weather during 2006 proved ideal for a wide range of fruit, cherry trees were weighed down early in the summer then later apple trees were breaking their branches the fruit was so heavy. Finally the recent gales brought down the last of the apples providing a feast for magpies, but perhaps surprisingly, not yet for flocks of invading redwings or other thrushes. Some migrant thrushes have already arrived in Britain and they normally love new towns such as Milton Keynes with their millions of planted berry trees such as hawthorn and rowan. But this year hawthorns were one of the few species that missed out on a bumper crop, a few hawthorns are very heavily laden but there are also adjacent stretches of hedgerowwith virtually no berries. I’ve not noticed this extreme variability in yield of a single species before, although I have seen hawthorns re-flowering in autumn in recent years so perhaps they are just getting very confused with our changing weather.

Jams. [image by Mike Dodd. 

© copyright Mike Dodd]

from hedgerow fruits and excess fresh produce from gardens or allotment. Cherry – 5 different varieties all with their own distinctive flavour, blackcurrant (from a friend’s garden), blackberry, apple and rowan, rowan, marrow and pumpkin (from our allotment), rosehip, damson…infact I have forgotten the full list as we have already finished some types, they are so nice on a bit of home made fresh bread.

Making jam is a way of storing food for the lean times and helping us humans to survive, but what about the tiny insects, how do they get through the harsh period of the year when there is little food about and being cold blooded they often can’t even move. There are a range of different strategies, some lay overwintering eggs, others such as dragonflies survive as underwater larvae but some such as many of the true bugs (Heteroptera) overwinter as adults often clustered together away from the wind and rain.ing about the year ahead, 2007, any ideas of items that will be the big nature news stories in UK? The harlequin ladybirds, horse chestnut leaf miner and few other invasive species are still rapidly spreading, perhaps the abundance of butterflies in 2006 will continue if we get another warm summer. Or will flooding come back to be a main story with all the drought forgotten and planners getting berated for letting people build in floodplains, or for allowing building near inflammable habitats such as heathland or conifer woodland. But I favour a news story of the first dragonfly to phone home, I’ve always wanted to stick a tiny transmitter on one of the migrant species and track it on its journey across Europe to UK and now I’m sure its only a matter of time before someone does it. The people in the office have heard me going on about this for 10 years and some dragonflies with tiny radio tags have been tracked from planes but as far as I know never using the mobile phone network or satellites.

About the author

Doctor Mike Dodd is a research fellow in ecology at the Open University. He is also a keen naturalist: "Nearly all biologists nowadays only study one organism or even just a few molecules, but I have a plea that people should be aware of their whole environment."

Subscribe to Mike Dodd's posts