Foreseeable impacts of soil mineral-organic component-microorganism interactions on society: Ecosystem health

Abstract

Soil is the central organizer of the terrestrial ecosystem. Minerals, organic components, and microorganisms, which are three major solid components of the soil, should not be considered as separate entities but rather as a united system constantly in close association and interactions with each other in the terrestrial environment. Foreseeable impacts of these interactions include microbial events, global ion cycling, global climatic changes, biodiversity, biological productivity and human nutrition, geomedicine, development of biotechnology, ecotoxicology and human health, ecosystem risk assessment, and ecosystem risk management and restoration. Therefore, interactions of these three major solid components of soils have enormous impacts on reactions and processes critical to environmental quality and ecosystem health. Fundamental understanding of these interactions at the atomic, molecular, and microscopic levels is essential for restoring, sustaining and enhancing ecosystem health, which include human health, on a global scale.