Ok, who amongst us isn’t staring at dirt sometime during the day and thinking oh you marvellous thing? No? We need to change that! Just one spoon of soil contains 10,000 to 50,000 types of micro-organisms! A single teaspoon (1 gram) of rich soil can hold up to one BILLION bacteria, several yards of fungal filaments, several thousand protozoa (single celled organisms), and scores of nematodes (simple roundworms). Most of these creatures are teeny tiny; earthworms and millipedes are giants in comparison!
The wellbeing of all plants and animals (including us humans) depends on the complex processes that take place in soil. Soil biodiversity even plays an important role in mitigating climate change and storing and filtering ground water.