Group of biologists at the Brigham Young University have discovered that microbes in the soil are essential is various activities to avoid certain natural calamities, according to a report in Science Daily.
Biologists explained the functions of microorganisms in the soil and look forward to prevent them from collapsing which will in turn affect the ecosystem to provide the services required.
"The organisms that live in soil do all kinds of important things for us -- they decompose and decontaminate our waste and toxic chemicals, purify our water, prevent erosion, renew fertility," said BYU biology professor Byron Adams, a study coauthor. "But we know very little about how they do this. What species need to be present? What are the different jobs that we need them to do?"
Adams and his team of biologists collected samples of soil from different places and sequentially extracted the DNA out of all the microorganisms in each sample in order to find the functions of each organism and to verify if there is any difference in the functions of the microbes of different samples.
"People think you're going to pick up a handful of dirt anywhere in the world and you'll pretty much have the same bunch of microbes doing pretty much the same things," Adams said, according to Science Daily. "That's simply not true. They function very differently based on their environment. And when you have more species, you get more, and different functions."
Biologists focused on finding a way to harness the soil microbes and prevent them from collapsing which may result in dysfunction of ecosystem services such as purifying water and fertile soil. They started by understanding the connection between biodiversity and the functions of microbes in the soil.
"The most obvious applications of this understanding will probably be in agricultural ecosystems," Adams said.
With the help of this research which can lead to in depth knowledge of underground ecosystems, can help humans to understand better of how these microbes respond to different conditions such as climate change to soil due to mining or drilling of wastes underground.
"We've been walking around on soil since the beginning of time and never really knew what was going on underneath us," Adams said. "Now we will be able to make predictions of how ecosystems function, what causes them to collapse, and perhaps even predict, where collapses will take place and how we can prevent them."
The study findings are published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
