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Participant: part of or influencing processes

Soil microbes

Appears in 55 processs and 166 steps. Everything below is linked: open a process to see it in context.

Top processes

Soil nitrogen mineralization and immobilization turnover

11 steps

Carbon priming, microbial efficiency and soil carbon sequestration

11 steps

Living soil system

10 steps

Biological coupling: organic matter and soil food web
Fate of plant-derived carbon in soil
Carbon dioxide respired to air
and 7 more in this process

Soil disturbance (fire, tillage, drought) and recovery

9 steps

Carbon use efficiency controls necromass production

8 steps

Soil respiration: temperature and moisture control and climate feedback

8 steps

Show 49 more processes

Microbial dormancy, the seed bank and reactivation after rewetting

7 steps

Terrestrial carbon uptake and release

6 steps

Start: Terrestrial carbon uptake and release
End: Terrestrial carbon uptake and release
Soil microbes decompose organic matter
and 3 more in this process

Microbial necromass pathway to stable organic matter

6 steps

Start: Microbial cells die
End: Necromass carbon stored, recycled or lost
Cells die by starvation, viral lysis, grazing and drying-rewetting shock
and 3 more in this process

Soil thermal regime and heat flow

6 steps

Biochar and charcoal in soil

5 steps

Start: Biochar and charcoal in soil
End: Biochar and charcoal in soil
Charcoal resists decomposition for centuries
and 2 more in this process

Biological uptake, litter return and mineralization

4 steps

Soil sulfur cycling

4 steps

Permafrost thaw and release of frozen soil carbon

4 steps

Plant-soil feedback and species coexistence

4 steps

Vegetation, snow, albedo and carbon feedbacks across scales

4 steps

Biological coupling: organic matter and soil food web

3 steps

Energy capture by living things

3 steps

Phosphorus cycling

3 steps

Nitrogen cycling

3 steps

Soil CO2 and biotic enhancement of weathering

3 steps

Freeze-thaw cycling and soil structure

3 steps

Carbon cycling

2 steps

Nutrient availability and leaching

2 steps

Nutrient cycling

2 steps

Pedogenesis and soil horizon development

2 steps

Microbial dormancy, the seed bank and resuscitation

2 steps

Nematode feeding guilds and control of root feeders

2 steps

Earthworm gut passage, casts and the drilosphere

2 steps

Organism-environment interactions

2 steps

Energy flow

1 step

Energy capture by living things

Mineral weathering and parent material

1 step

Soil CO2 and biotic enhancement of weathering

Pedogenic age sequence: from apatite phosphorus to occluded phosphorus

1 step

Apatite dissolves; P moves into plant biomass and organic matter

Sequential soil pH buffer systems

1 step

Al3+ damages root tips and microbes, lowering uptake and biological activity

Aggregate formation and pore structure

1 step

Freeze-thaw cycling and soil structure

Cation exchange, pH and soil solution chemistry

1 step

Biochar and charcoal in soil

Salinity and sodicity

1 step

Microbial respiration and decomposition decline under salt stress

Humification and SOM stabilization

1 step

Microbial necromass pathway to stable organic matter

Soil-plant-water coupling and drought response

1 step

Redistributed water supports shallow roots, mycorrhizae and nutrient uptake

Biological nitrogen fixation: nitrogenase, oxygen protection and regulation

1 step

Fixed nitrogen enters the soil by nodule senescence, root and litter turnover, and diazotroph death

Actinomycetes: Streptomyces hyphal life cycle, extracellular enzymes and antibiotics

1 step

Death and lysis of colonies return amino sugars and cell wall carbon to the soil organic pool

Soil viruses and bacteriophages: lysis, lysogeny and the viral shunt

1 step

Viral shunt: lysate (labile carbon, amino acids, nucleotides, ammonium) goes back to the dissolved pool instead of up the grazer food web

Biological nitrogen fixation: free-living and symbiotic

1 step

Nodule senescence, root turnover and rhizodeposition return fixed nitrogen to soil (below-ground N is about 4-70% of legume plant N across studies)

Viral shunt: phage lysis recycles bacterial carbon and nitrogen

1 step

Surviving microbes take up the lysate and mineralize part of it; the rest sorbs to minerals or becomes necromass (the viral shunt)

Bacteria and archaea

1 step

Microbial dormancy, the seed bank and reactivation after rewetting

Peat accumulation and wetland methane

1 step

Drainage or drought lowers the water table, oxygen enters and peat respires CO2 (drained peatland about 0.3% of land, about 5% of human CO2-equivalent emissions)

Soil inorganic carbon: pedogenic carbonate formation and dissolution

1 step

Root and microbial respiration raise soil pore CO2 well above the atmosphere, driving carbonic acid and bicarbonate formation

Soil gas exchange and redox

1 step

Soil respiration: temperature and moisture control and climate feedback

Soil fauna

1 step

Nematode feeding guilds and control of root feeders

Rhizosphere phosphorus mobilization: phosphatases, organic acids and fast re-sorption

1 step

Microbial biomass holds a few percent of total soil P but turns over fast, so microbes immobilize and release a large P flux

Earthworm drilosphere: gut passage, casts, middens and greenhouse gas effects

1 step

Fresh casts are enriched in ammonium, nitrate, extractable phosphorus and microbial biomass compared with surrounding soil

Gas diffusion and air-filled porosity control of soil aeration

1 step

Wetting cuts Ds: aerobic activity peaks near 60% water-filled pore space and N2O production rises above it as denitrification takes over

Biological soil crusts: cyanobacteria, lichens and mosses on dryland surfaces

1 step

Fixed nitrogen leaks as ammonium and amino acids to the soil beneath and neighbouring plants and microbes

Predatory bacteria: Bdellovibrio and Myxococcus hunting soil prey

1 step

Prey remains return carbon and nitrogen to the soluble pool; predators hold part as biomass

Nitrogen fixation supply-demand feedback

1 step

Soil mineral nitrogen rises

Often found with

Carbon 56 Carbon dioxide 44 Plant roots 33 Nitrogen 30 Soil organic matter 29 Plants 25 Water 23 Ammonium 22 Nitrate 11 Soil fauna 10 Mycorrhizal fungi 10 Soil organic matter 9

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