A. 6. Succession and the soil food web

As the food web in the soil becomes more complex, the ratio of fungi to bacteria increases, plant productivity increases, and vegetative communities change. It appears that “nature” drives the successional process by continuously building more and more complex carbon compounds. This development of complex, highly-retention organic matter in soil is driven by the kinds of plant materials that are produced by higher plants, and through an ever-more complex set of metabolites being released as the biology that uses the ever-more complex carbon substrates produced by plants decompose those materials.

Another way of saying this is that as humic materials accumulate in the soil, productivity of plants increases. But the formation of humic materials is completely dependent on the biology in the soil and on plant surfaces. So, what is the chicken, and which is the egg? As Dr. David Perry explained, it’s a boot-strapping process. Nature moves towards ever-more complex systems, ever-more diverse, ever-more productive. Until a disturbance happens that destroys the complexity, reduces diversity. Whereupon, nature just starts the building process again…

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