Soil Science as an Ecological Study

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A text book of Soil Ecology, offers a physico-chemistry approach to soil biology and ecosystem function, providing students and ecosystem researchers with a greater understanding of the central roles that soils play in ecosystem development and function. The text emphasizes the increasing importance of soils as the organizing center for all terrestrial ecosystems and provides an overview of theory and practice in soil ecology, both from an ecosystem and evolutionary biology point of view. This book is fully updated, including an expanded treatment of microbial ecology and new sections on advances in molecular techniques and climate change research. These updates make this edition an essential resource for researchers and students in soil ecology and microbiology. The book has presented a historical background of soil concepts, extending from early Chinese and Mesopotamian cultures, through Greco-Roman, into modern times. Much modern research focuses at the interface between soil, water, gases and organisms. Soils have texture and structure, arising via a range of mechanisms, mediated by the production of soil organic matter. Soil is one of the most heterogeneous environments that exist in nature and existing within this complex matrix are soil biota ranging from virus particles through to macro fauna. From this complex environment comes most of the food needed for the world population. This highlights the absolute importance of improving our understanding of this complex environment. Soil biodiversity changes driven by global change are the result of direct impacts (changes in temperature and moisture), and indirectly, through shifts in nutrient supply from plants. Invasive plants and animals add to the complexity of these long-term processes. Increasing food web complexity in soils should provide improved "health" (i.e., enhanced recycling of nutrients) in agro-ecosystems. . It critique of the interfaces between soil food webs, and enhanced provision of ecosystem services over landscapes at millennial time scales. In this book the physico-chemical and biological properties of soil have been mentioned, reader's will have a book that will go a long way to words giving them the understanding of soil ecology relevant to research in production, agriculture and on environmental issues.