The Hidden Beauty of Soil’s Secret Star Power

So you’ve clicked on a blog post about soil.

Why exactly did you do that?

What inspired you, connected with you, drew you in to wanting to read about soil of all things? While I think my friends are used to me talking about it by now, soil is rarely thought of as the most exciting component of our world.

It isn’t considered a conversation starter, let alone a mainstream topic for a blog.

So why are you here today?

Perhaps you work with soil on a daily basis. Maybe you have a strong passion for the environment and recognise soil as a major player there. Dare I say there may even be some among us who misclicked on their quest to find pictures of the Aurora Australis. Whatever your reason for visiting this page, I hope you leave feeling inspired and ready to notice and learn soil more in your everyday surroundings.

And yes, I can still promise you pretty pictures!

The Unseen Star

For those of you who have stuck around, I want to tell you a story. This is a story about a star of the ‘big screen’. A story about someone who possessed an almost hypnotic draw in their fleeting moments of fame. This is the story of… a microscopic worm.

A Portal to Another World

As a bunch of soil scientists we had eagerly gathered in the laboratory. We had been promised a trip to a new universe and we didn’t even have to leave Australia. We were going to look down a microscope. As researchers we should know about soil, at least you would hope anyway, but for many of us, it was an exciting occasion to experience a different side of soil. Stripped of the beauty of its natural surroundings, with not a plant in sight, even I must admit the soil look rather inconspicuous at best. Such beauty was further lost after preparation. We had all gathered to behold – a murky brown liquid.

Marketing the Unmarketable

Maybe it is just me, but this sight hardly inspires the soul to want to engage with soil. This is where getting recognition for the value of soil becomes a difficult sell. Soil enthusiasts rightly turn to sharing the critical importance of soil to our world. Research has shown soil plays key roles in everything from mitigating climate change to the discovery of new medicines. The importance of soil to our planet is a message that needs to be spread. Even then however, the focus and arguably the aspect truly being valued is rarely the soil.

Everywhere but Nowhere

To find beauty in soil we first have to choose to take notice of it. Of course, we have all seen soil in our lives but how often do we actually notice soil. In some ways soil is very visible, it covers extensive stretches of the world’s landscape. In others, it really is not. Soil is typically below our feet, perhaps even paved over. In its apparent ubiquity, it can often be filtered out, reduced to simply background noise. If we don’t give a second thought when we trample grass under our feet, how much less do we think about the soil yet further below. How much less again for some of its smallest inhabitants?

The Star of the Screen

For us in the laboratory, what we saw was a truly remarkable transformation. Hidden within the ‘ugliness’ of the soil concoction was a star. Sauntering onto the screen came a nematode, dancing through their world of clay. When you see such creatures so different from our typical human experience of planet earth, is it any wonder that soil microbe have inspired art hung upon the walls of galleries?

It is time to value soil

We live in a world surrounded by soil, surrounded by microscopic creatures we will never normally see. An enthralling world, where we are still only scratching that surface. Soil can be beautiful and a gateway to another world. And yet it is only by increasing our understanding of this seemingly alien world that we will be able to better look after our own.

Conclusion: Beneath Our Feet, Within Our World

In the macroscopic world we live in it is easy to disconnect from the life beneath our feet. Yet the world of soil is still our world – ‘Earth’. May I suggest when you get some time to go on a google. There are many more pictures magnifying soil from across the world. It is not just therapeutic to marvel at the beauty of the tiny creatures and particles of soil but fascinating to dive into the intricacies of how they underpin the world that we know.

Ultimately, it is up to us to choose to connect with soil, the soil itself cannot speak out but the value it holds is, at least in my opinion, worthy of our attention

Many thanks go to Céline Basset and Hero Tahaei for running the ‘Wonderful World of Soil Microfauna’ described and photographed in this blog post. Additional thanks and photo credits go to Sandra Evangelista.

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