SCIENCE: Watch Those ‘Beasts’ Beneath Your Feet

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Nov 28 2002 (IPS) - Tread respectfully on those little beasts beneath your feet. Tomorrow they might save you.

In that world of ants, earthworms and termites just millimetres below soil level, thousands of tiny organisms await discovery, scientists now find. It is these "mini-beasts" that promise to find answers to an agricultural crisis and to the world’s many ills, including global warming, scientists now find.

"This is the first time that a major programme is being launched to understand the diversity of life below the ground in tropical countries," Prof Jo Anderson from Exeter University told IPS Thursday. Prof Anderson chairs the technical advocacy group of a new programme being launched by United Nations Environment Prgramme (UNEP).

The new UNEP programme will work with a budget of 26 million dollars to study this "largest source of untapped life left on Earth" in seven tropical countries – Brazil, Mexico, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Kenya, Indonesia and India. But studies launched already have pointed to "incredible diversity" and its "incredible usefulness", Prof Anderson said.

But why has it taken scientists so long to look under their feet? "The breakthrough in technology to give us soil DNA came only in the late eighties and early nineties," Dr Fatima Moreira, a soil microbiologist at the Federal University of Lavras in Brazil told IPS. "Now, each day we are discovering more and more."

And scientists are discovering also that the final answer to global warming too may rest beneath the feet. Soil-living organisms are found to play a key role in the release of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases from the land to the atmosphere. Understanding the role of these tiny creatures and life-forms in the so-called "carbon cycle" may help the land absorb more greenhouse gases.

"We are beginning to discover the importance of nitrogen fixing bacteria just below soil level that take nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to plants by turning it into ammonia," Dr Moreira said. In Brazil alone moves to restore the life of bacteria can bring a benefit of 1.4 billion dollars a year, she said.

"The life forms living just below our feet are the most understudied organisms on the planet," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of UNEP. "When people think of where new species might be found, they tend to think of the rainforests, mangrove swamps or place like mountain peaks. Not millimetres below their toes."

Toepfer said: "Researchers are now realizing that the world’s soils, especially those in the tropics, are teeming with life and harbour more undescribed species than dwell on the Earth’s surface. Harvesting the secrets of this understudied realm promises huge benefits and improved knowledge towards the goal of delivering sustainable development, towards eradicating poverty. This is one of the more unusual, curious but absolutely vital projects UNEP has undertaken."

Scientists working on the project say that for example earthworms, termites and other soil-burrowing organisms influence the amount of rainwater soils can absorb. Soils depleted in such organisms are more drought-prone and at risk from catastrophic run-off. This can in turn increase the risk of flooding and erosion with consequences for river water quality and habitats such as coral reefs.

Research has shown that many soil-living organisms attack and neutralise plant, animal and human pests and pathogens. It may be possible to promote beneficial soil-dwelling life forms to reduce crop, livestock and human diseases, the researchers believe.

Research indicates that the ability of termites to re-work iron-hard soils has been used as a tool to reclaim degraded soils in Africa and Australia. Scientists have shown that the digestive processes of these soil-feeding termites significantly increase the availability of nutrients to plants and are keystones in this traditional agricultural cycle.

A team from the French ‘Institute de Recherche pour le Development’ and the University of Sambalpur in India, working with the Indian company Parry Agro, found that, after the re-introduction of earthworms including native species, harvests at some of the plantations are up as much as 282 per cent, and profits hike by as much as 5,500 dollars per hectare per year.

Ahmed Djoghlaf, head of the UNEP/GEF (Global Environment Fund) in Nairobi said: "Many people are well aware that increasing intensification of agriculture and the clearing of forests for farmland is contributing to the threat of extinction and a decline in the numbers of plants and animals on the surface. There is growing evidence that a similar impact is being felt below ground. So we may be losing many important and useful species from the world’s soils without even knowing it."

Mike Swift, Director of the Nairobi-based Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute said "what we know is the tip of the iceberg." He said apart from discovering new species, one of the project’s aims is to test if different kinds of vegetation play a role in boosting or diminishing the diversity of life forms below.

These life forms can healthily replace damaging fertilisers and pesticides, Swift said. Losses of essential nutrients in the soil "can be partially compensated for by the use of petrol-driven agriculture and the use of industrially-produced fertilisers and pesticides, but complete substitution is often both biologically and economically inefficient and carries dangers of environmental side-effects," he said.