Applied Soil Ecology 15 (2000) 1–2
Introduction
This special issue of Applied Soil Ecology focuses on the question, can a deeper understanding of soil or-ganisms help land managers improve their soil qual-ity? The eight papers address which groups of soil organisms are most important, how to quantify them, and how to work with farmers and other land man-agers to apply the resulting knowledge.
Improving soil quality is both a means and an end. First, monitoring soil quality is a means to determine the sustainability of management practices. Because so many ecological processes are mediated by soil and soil organisms, soil quality is a necessary (though not always sufficient) indicator of environmental sustain-ability. Therefore, periodic assessments of soil quality can help land managers determine whether their prac-tices are sustainable. In other words, if soil remains healthy when subjected to an agricultural or natural resource management practice, the practice is likely to be environmentally sustainable in the long term. Sec-ond, soil quality is an end in its own right. Soil is the basis of agriculture and of natural plant communities. For this reason, soil quality must be husbanded care-fully for future generations.
The ultimate determinant of soil quality is the land manager: the farmer, rancher, or park supervisor who decides which management practices to use. Thus ulti-mately, the best way to conserve and improve soil qual-ity is to provide knowledge and decision-making tools to land managers. In particular, land managers need knowledge and tools to assess the impact of manage-ment practices on the soil’s biotic community. Aside from coral reefs, soils are the planet’s most diverse ecosystem (Anon., 1997). Further, soil organism abun-dance and diversity are well correlated with beneficial soil functions including water infiltration and storage, decomposition and nutrient cycling, detoxification of pollutants, and suppression of noxious organisms (e.g.
Appl. Soil Ecol. 9 (1998) 233–302). Nonetheless, to date many land managers have used only physical and chemical properties to characterize soil quality.
To provide land managers with tools for character-izing the biotic component of soil quality will require a multidisciplinary effort. As a small step towards this end, a conference entitled ‘Soil Health: Manag-ing the Biological Component of Soil Quality’ was held as part of the joint annual meeting of the Ento-mological Society of America (ESA) and the Amer-ican Phytopathology Society (APS) convened in Las Vegas, Nevada, in November 1998. The objectives of the conference were to increase awareness within the ESA and APS of the utility of soil organisms as indi-cators of soil quality, and to permit researchers from diverse disciplines to integrate results from multiple taxa of soil organisms. The overarching goal was to help ‘translate science into practice’ (Doran, 1997) by providing a forum for researchers and extension work-ers to discuss farmer-participatory programs for man-aging soil quality. The papers published in this issue of Applied Soil Ecology were presented in abbreviated form during the conference.
These papers cover several approaches to the use of soil organisms in monitoring and conserving soil quality. Firstly, two papers explore how land man-agers themselves could monitor the effects of manage-ment practices on soil organisms. Specifically, Doran and Zeiss discuss the utility of soil organism abun-dance and diversity as indicators of soil quality for land managers. Further, Wander and Drinkwater re-view farmer-participatory programs for assessing and improving soil quality. An additional four papers ex-plore a complementary approach: having researchers determine the effects of management practices on soil organisms, thereby saving land managers time and ex-pense. Specifically, papers by Hill et al. and by van
2 Introduction / Applied Soil Ecology 15 (2000) 1–2
Bruggen and Semenov discuss the most useful tech-niques by which researchers could quantify the re-silience and diversity of soil microbial communities. Further, Rosemeyer et al. and Abawi and Widmer doc-ument the impacts of specific agricultural practices on plant disease and nodulation. Lastly, two papers (by Herrick, and Sherwood and Uphoff) provide con-ceptual and policy guidelines for future multidisci-plinary cooperation among researchers, extensionists, and land managers.
Organizing a conference is always a group effort. I would like to express my special gratitude to George Abawi, co-organizer of the ESA/APS soil health con-ference, for his enthusiasm and logistical support. George and I gratefully acknowledge the Soil Quality Institute (of the US Department of Agriculture’s Nat-ural Resources Conservation Service) and the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture for their financial support of the conference. Thanks also to Doug Kleine (of the ESA) and Mary Barbercheck (chair of ESA’s Program Committee for the annual meeting) for their assiduous administrative efforts in support of the conference. Finally, our sincere thanks to all the conference participants for contributing their knowledge, time, and resources; and to the many referees who reviewed the manuscripts.
This special issue is only one of several recent re-sources on the biotic component of soil quality. First, some of the conference participants have published
their research results elsewhere (Behan-Pelletier and Newton, 1999; Villani et al., 1999; Wall and Moore, 1999). Also noteworthy are two previous special is-sues: Appl. Soil Ecol. 9 (1998) and Appl. Soil Ecol. 10 (3) (1998). Other recent publications and networks are cited in Doran and Zeiss (this issue). I urge all readers to use these resources plus your own results to ‘trans-late science into practice’ by developing practical pro-grams for monitoring and conserving soil quality.
References
Anon., 1997. Dark frontier beneath our feet. BioScience 47, 339, 396.
Behan-Pelletier, V., Newton, G., 1999. Computers in biology: linking soil biodiversity and ecosystem function — the taxonomic dilemma. BioScience 49, 149–153.
Doran, J.W., 1997. Soil quality and sustainability. In: Proceedings of the XXVI Brazilian Congress of Soil Science, 20–26 July 1997, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Villani, M.G., Allee, L.L., D´ıaz, A., Robbins, P.S., 1999. Adaptive strategies of edaphic arthropods. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 44, 233–256.
Wall, D.H., Moore, J.C., 1999. Interactions underground. BioScience 49, 109–117.
Michael R. Zeiss∗ c/o FAOR, 3 Nguyen Gia Thieu, Hanoi, Viet Nam
∗Tel.:+84-4824-8645; fax:+84-4823-6829.
