The Architecture and biology of soils: life in inner space

Whilst the soil biomass comprises a tiny proportion of the total soil mass, it plays a dominant role in delivering the wide range of ecosystem services provided by soil systems. The soil biota create physical structure within their habitat, affect the resultant dynamics of many soil processes and are themselves affected by such structure. This interplay between the spatial constructs of the soil matrix and the life within it is appositely conceptualized in terms of an architecture of the soil, and the pore networks therein as a form of planetary inner space. That then is the theme of this book, which aims to explore these concepts from a variety of perspectives and reveal how, ultimately, the functioning of the terrestrial components of the Earth system fundamentally depends upon the quite remarkable spatial organization of the soil.