TY - JOUR T1 - Soil biology for resilient, healthy soil JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 12A LP - 18A DO - 10.2489/jswc.70.1.12A VL - 70 IS - 1 AU - R. Michael Lehman AU - Veronica Acosta-Martinez AU - Jeffrey S. Buyer AU - Cynthia A. Cambardella AU - Harold P. Collins AU - Thomas F. Ducey AU - Jonathan J. Halvorson AU - Virginia L. Jin AU - Jane M.F. Johnson AU - Robert J. Kremer AU - Jonathan G. Lundgren AU - Daniel K. Manter AU - Jude E. Maul AU - Jeffrey L. Smith AU - Diane E. Stott Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/70/1/12A.abstract N2 - What is a resilient, healthy soil? A resilient soil is capable of recovering from or adapting to stress, and the health of the living/biological component of the soil is crucial for soil resiliency. Soil health is tightly coupled with the concept of soil quality (table 1), and the terms are frequently used interchangeably. The living component of soil or soil biota represents a small fraction (<0.05% dry weight), but it is essential to many soil functions and overall soil quality. Some of these key functions or services for production agriculture are (1) nutrient provision and cycling, (2) pest and pathogen protection, (3) production of growth factors, (4) water availability, and (5) formation of stable aggregates to reduce the risks of soil erosion and increase water infiltration (table 2). Soil resources and their inherent biological communities are the foundation for agricultural production systems that sustain the human population. The rapidly increasing human population is expanding the demand for food, fiber, feed, and fuel, which is stretching the capacity of the soil resource and contributing to soil degradation. Soil degradation decreases a soil's production capacity to directly supply human demands and decreases a soil's functional capacity to perform numerous critical services, which… ER -