The relationship between small creatures and trees

The relationship between small creatures and trees

Soil is an important component of the Diaper Cycle as it helps regulate important ecosystem processes, such as nutrient uptake, decomposition, and water availability. Trees cannot even survive without small creatures in soil. Today, let’s examine an important part of ecosystems that lies beneath the surface, with lesser scientific words, in a simpler way.

Small creatures like worms and microbes play an important role in soil ecosystems. They eat decaying roots, leaves, and animal excreta. In doing so, creatures decompose them into nutrients which plants can absorb through their roots. Over time, those decaying materials are broken down and disappear from our sight.

Worms decompose organic matters less sufficiently than microbes do. So, worms eat soil with microbes. Once inside a worm’s body, these microbes become more active than they are outside, thanks to the abundant food and water available there. Microbes decompose and convert lots of organic matters into the worm’s nutrients. As a result, the worm absorbs nutrition from the soil.

As worms eat soil and expand their habitat around plant roots, they continuously excrete it in the form of small, crumbly structures. Some kids might say it looks like the Dippin' Dots ice cream in soil color if they see that form of structure for the first time. The crumb structure keeps enough space to store air and water between each of the crumbs. In other words, this structure helps plants to grow their tiny and soft roots into the soil. 

Thus, small creatures help trees grow. And elements are circulating between living trees and soils. Some of them would form a fruit and leave the cycle as a human picks it up to eat.

Imagine that the elements which your body consists of might have been circling round in that cycle.
Isn’t it interesting?

Author: Takaharu Fukui