Leonardo da Vinci once remarked that "We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot." You could argue that his insight still holds true the best part of 500 years later. But new genomic technologies mean that the microscopic bodies that enliven soil may be about to get the attention they deserve — if not as individuals, then as communities. Twice as much carbon is stored in Earth's soil as exists in the plants that grow from it and the animals that depend on them. It is the soil's microbes that are responsible for recycling this carbon, and other nutrients. Living in the fractal jumble of weathered rock, mineral particles and decaying organic matter are a cast of thousands, some say millions, of species. These soil organisms occupy an endless foam of tiny niches; they purify water, detoxify harmful substances and recycle waste products. They restore carbon dioxide to the air and make the atmospheres nitrogen available to plants. Without them, continents would be deserts — home to little more than lichen, and not much of that.
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机译：达芬奇（Leonardo da Vinci）曾说过：“我们比对脚下的土壤了解更多有关天体的运动。”您可能会争辩说，他的洞察力仍然是500年后最好的部分。但是，新的基因组技术意味着使土壤充满活力的微观物体可能会引起他们应有的关注-如果不是作为个人，而是作为社区。储存在地球土壤中的碳是从土壤中生长出来的植物以及依赖它们的动物中存在的碳的两倍。土壤微生物负责循环利用这些碳和其他养分。生活在风化岩石的分形杂物中，矿物颗粒和腐烂的有机物是成千上万种，甚至有数百万种的生物。这些土壤生物占据了无休止的细小泡沫。他们净化水，为有害物质排毒并回收废物。它们将二氧化碳还原到空气中，并使大气中的氮可用于植物。没有它们，各大洲将成为沙漠-地衣仅存于此，而其中很多。
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