If we’re looking for a species-rich environment, the place to go may be underfoot, according to an article in the National Science Foundation’s online Discoveries page.

Biologist Diana Wall of Colorado State University in Fort Collins is quoted as saying, “The unseen, and mostly underappreciated, realm beneath us is teeming with life. Earth is really brown and black, not green.”

Along with other researchers, Wall conducted research on the below-ground biodiversity of two sites in Alaska: one below the Arctic Circle in the interior of the state and the other above the Circle in the Brooks Range. The two locations are part of the National Science Foundation’s 26 LTER (long-term ecological research) sites.

The site in the state’s interior, Bonanza Creek, is mostly boreal forest. The site above the Arctic Circle is flat, open tundra. Nematodes, or round worms, were the dominant soil animals in both locations. Rotifers, microscopic wheel-shaped animals, made up 26.1 percent of the soil animals in the Arctic tundra and 18 percent of life beneath the boreal forest. Arthropods such as spiders comprised some 19.4 percent of the boreal forest underground, and 2.6 percent of that of the tundra. Tardigrades, better known as water bears, were rarer, at 1.3 percent and 1.5 percent of boreal forest and tundra, respectively.

The NSF article includes videos featuring the comments of the researchers and photos of the research sites.

Wall notes that all above-surface organisms ultimately depend on soil biodiversity. For that reason, the biologists are attempting to learn all they can about the soil animals in a region where climate change is occurring. The researchers report that life beneath the surface at both sites is showing changes. Climate change is happening faster in the Arctic region than elsewhere in the world. 

More about LTR. The April 2009 issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears featured another LTER scientist in the Brooks Range. Linda Deegan researches a fish called the grayling that migrates in streams, lakes and rivers above the Arctic Circle.