#RegenesisFact 5: When healthy soil is air-dried, the relative humidity inside the tiny clumps made by its microbes and small animals remains at 98%. In other words, these clumps are more or less impervious to desiccation: a property that at first sight looks like magic. 🧵
It’s not magic, but nor is it accidental. The vast internal surface area that makes it possible is a feature of biological construction. The little clumps (called aggregates by soil scientists) are not just made within the soil. They are the soil. Without them, it would collapse.
Just as corals and other species are reef-builders, bacteria, fungi and small animals are soil-builders. In making homes for themselves, they build the ecosystem on which almost all terrestrial life depends.
Using the carbon in the soil to make polymers (cements), they each create the structures that suit them. Together, they build an open, porous, water-retaining cushion of minerals and organic matter between rock and air. *It would not be there without them*.
This cushion is fractally scaled. In other words, the catacombs built by these creatures, that range from bacteria to earthworms, have the same structure at all levels of magnification. This helps to give soil its extraordinary structural resilience - until we damage it.
The creatures that build the soil want a saturated atmosphere. Just as carbon in the soil is held in the form of biological cements, water is held in the form of biological films and trapped vapour. Without them, soil couldn’t support plant life. Water is life and life is water.
Source: David C. Coleman, Mac A. Callaham, D. A. Crossley, 2018. Fundamentals of Soil Ecology. Academic Press. doi.org/10.1016/C2015-…
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