Ecosystems

Soil Biodiversity

Dr. Diana Wall’s National Science Foundation Global Soil Biodiversity Grant examined soil biodiversity across latitudinal gradients from Sweden to South Africa, and Alaska to Argentina, to determine if below-ground patterns follow plant patterns of greater diversity in the tropics. This is of increasing importance when we recognize that more than 90% of the energy that flows through an ecosystem eventually passes through the food webs below ground and that more species live in soil than aboveground.