Wildlife in Your Garden. Группа авторов

infrastructure for plants’ roots. They make nutrients available, disperse water, and open air pathways for good circulation, creating a healthy community or habitat.

      The benefits of biodiversity in your soil don’t stop with the plants. Recent scientific studies support the hygiene hypothesis, which theorizes that people who grow up in developed countries are too clean for their own good. Researchers are finding that early exposure to healthy amounts of bacteria, fungus, and even some parasites could build children’s immune systems, leading to fewer inflammatory conditions as adults. Scientists are trying to identify which members of a healthy gut microbiome affect specific problems, ranging from Crohn’s disease to autism.

      Similarly, soil scientists are often interested in isolating the bacteria and fungi that create certain changes in soil chemistry and fertility. However, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) states, “Many effects of soil organisms are a result of the interactions among organisms, rather than the actions of individual species. This implies that managing for a healthy food web is not primarily a matter of inoculating with key species, but of creating the right environmental conditions to support a diverse community of species.”

      Where do you find the richest, most diverse, and most resilient soil systems? In forests. Forests can have up to 40 miles of fungus in just one teaspoon of soil, compared to several yards of fungus in a teaspoon of typical agricultural soil. Gardening with native plants and natural systems encourages a rich, biodiverse community above and below ground and mimics the conditions found in the wild forest. So go ahead and get some of that good dirt—er, soil—under your nails.

      The soil in a healthy forest supports a thriving, biodiverse community.