The Soil Food Web - A Jungle in Tiny Dimensions

Life in the Soil

In this episode, Anja and Matthias take you on an underground safari through the hidden jungle of the soil. And they’ve won some excellent scientists as tour guides. You’ll hear from Diana Wall about a tiny worm that is so tough it even lives in Antarctica or hot deserts. Richard Bardgett introduces you to collembola, also known as springtails - tiny insect-like animals that can jump like crazy! Stefan Scheu and Maddy Thakur reveal which animals are considered the “wolves of the soil”, and Kate Scow delves into bacterial communities. How do all these organisms work together as a system, and why does this soil food web matter greatly to us as well? Subscribe and learn more on rilliglab.org/podcast/ Episode transcript: https://rilliglab.org/2021/01/15/life-in-the-soil-podcast-3-soil-food-web/ CREDITS + LINKS Produced by: Anja Krieger and the Rillig Lab https://rilliglab.org/ Funded by: Digging Deeper / BiodivERsA www.biodiversa.org/ Guest experts in this episode: Diana Wall, Richard Bardgett, Stefan Scheu, Maddy Thakur, Kate Scow Additional Voices in intro: Yong-Guan Zhu Story consultants: Stefanie Maaß, Moisés Sosa Hernández Thanks for feedback: Madara Pētersone, Florian Hintz Cover art: Maren von Stockhausen http://marenvonstockhausen.de/ Theme music: Sunfish Moon Light / Future Ecologies www.futureecologies.net Additional Music: Blue Dot Sessions https://www.sessions.blue/ Sounds: Sasa Spacal, “Transversal Is A Loop” https://www.agapea.si, leaves by iamdylanavery Diana Wall and Richard Bardgett are founding members of the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative: https://www.globalsoilbiodiversity.org They were among the 300 scientists who contributed to the United Nations report on the global state of soil biodiversity which emerged from the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative: http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/CB1928EN Together with the European Commission the GSBI has also published a beautiful Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas, which you can order in print or download for free: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c54ece8e-1e4d-11e6-ba9a-01aa75ed71a1 The Digging Deeper project was funded through the 2015-2016 BiodivERsA COFUND call for research proposals, with the national funders Swiss National Science Foundation, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Swedish Research Council Formas, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and Agence Nationale de la Recherche.