Prolonged droughts followed by sudden bursts of rainfall -- how do desert soil bacteria manage to survive such harsh conditions? This long-debated question has now been answered by microbiologists.

Researchers from the Sydney Institute of Agriculture at the University of Sydney investigated the vast and largely hidden world beneath our feet. Soil is where 59% of all life on Earth resides. A ...

When snow blankets the landscape, it may seem like life slows down. But beneath the surface, an entire world of activity is ...

URBANA, Ill. — There’s a complex world beneath our feet, teeming with diverse and interdependent life. Plants call out with chemical signals in times of stress, summoning microbes that can unlock ...

Microbial stress can be a boon for young trees. Saplings grown in soil microbes that have experienced drought, cold or heat are more likely to survive when faced with those same conditions, ...

Globally, soils contain three times as much carbon as exists in the atmosphere and all plants, combined. Which means that understanding how soil microbes recycle organic materials—sometimes sending CO ...

Red earthworm with roots in garden soil. Science is only beginning to understand soil-dwelling microbes — and their symbiotic relationship in plants. An entire world exists underground, inhabited by ...

Researchers discovered that microbes respire three times as much CO2 from lignin carbons compared to cellulose carbons. When soil microbes eat plant matter, the digested food follows one of two ...

Researchers discovered that soil microbes in Kansas carry drought “memories” that affect how plants grow and survive. Native plants showed stronger responses to these microbial legacies than crops ...

La Puna, a high-altitude plateau straddling Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, is not for the faint of heart. Visitors must endure a 10-hour drive from the closest city, battle altitude sickness at ...

Lucy M. Stitzer is the founder and editor of Dirt-To-Dinner. Its mission is to help consumers better understand how their food is grown and processed, and why this is important to them and their ...