Ecologists have long known that the ground beneath our feet is home to more life, and more diverse life, than almost any other place on Earth. To a layperson, soil seems little more than a compact layer of dirt. But in fact, the ground is a labyrinthine landscape of tunnels, cavities, roots and decaying litter. In just a cup of dirt, researchers have counted up to 100 million life forms, from more than 5,000 taxa. Underground denizens range from microscopic bacteria and fungi and pencil-dot-sized springtails and mites, to centipedes, slugs and earthworms that can reach several meters in length, to moles, mice and rabbits in their tunnels and dens.
“It’s a staggering amount of biodiversity,” says Uffe Nielsen, a soil biologist at Western Sydney University in Australia. It’s also a vital one: Collectively, these subterranean communities form much of the basis for life on our planet, from the food we eat to the air we breathe.
Today, in a relatively new field known as soil bioacoustics — others prefer terms such as biotremology or soil ecoacoustics — a growing number of biologists are capturing underground noises to open a window into this complex and cryptic world. They’ve found that something as simple as a metal nail pushed into the dirt can become a sort of upside-down antenna if equipped with the right sensors. And the more researchers listen, the more it becomes apparent how much the ground below us is thrumming with life.
Eavesdropping on this cacophony of underground sounds promises to reveal not only what life forms reside below our feet but also how they go about their existence — how they eat or hunt, how they slither past each other unnoticed, or drum, tap and sing to get one another’s attention. Life underground “is a black box,” says Nielsen. “As we open it, we realize how little we know.”
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