Watch where you step!
LIFE IN THE SOIL: A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners
By James B. Nardi
University of Chicago Press
Paperback, 268 pages
2007
This paperbound field trip covers more than the creepy crawlies you would expect. University of Illinois biologist, James Nardi delivers a concise, yet complete overview of life in the earth...which is essentially all life on Earth. He takes us from how soil happens (rocks and minerals), to the plants that live within it, and plant partners, bacteria, fungi and animal life, invertebrates and vertebrates. The book is practical, rather than prosey, but Nardi's affection for his topic comes through clearly and makes you happy to be with him.
Autodidacts, parents and teachers will like the "fact boxes," photographs and annotated drawings (by Nardi). My favorite graphic is a pyramid with ten levels (page 27) that illustrates the volume of animals that live on a square meter of ground (one vertebrate, 3,000 worms, 5,000,000 nematodes). There is a glossary, suggestions for further reading and an index. I really liked the chapter, "Collecting and Observing Life of the Soil," which provides simple tools and methods that virtually anyone can try.
Perhaps most importantly, Nardi explains how soil becomes exhausted and lifeless because populations of humans don't understand the soil cycle in the chapter, "Working in Partnership with Creatures of the Soil." We're not talking exclusively about farmers. If you live in the suburbs with neighbors who routinely mow, rake and disposes of clippings...they don't get it either. So check out this book yourself and pass it's lessons on. Life depends on it.