The World Beneath Our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All

Frank Ashwood

To appreciate the wonders of the world around us, we're often told to look up. But what if we need to look down instead?

The ground beneath our feet hums with a staggering abundance of winding roots, interconnecting fungal networks, wriggling creatures and mind-blowing microbial life. This glittering ecosystem is the single most biodiverse habitat on the planet. Half of all our species exist underfoot, and just a handful of soil can contain an entire world. Without soil, there would be no life as we know it.

Everything that happens below ground sustains all life above it - yet we rarely think about this mysterious, dark underland. In The World Beneath Our Feet soil ecologist Frank Ashwood scratches the surface and takes us on an eye-opening safari through this precious ecosystem, from the ancient forests of New Zealand to the vast black soil deposits of China. Every layer of the pedosphere is a world of its own, each more alien than the last as we travel deeper into the Earth.

In a story of connection and communication, we meet pioneering plants and invisible insects that are essential to the health and wellbeing of our planet. We learn how soil makes our very existence possible, allowing us to cultivate crops as well as storing the water we need to survive. We marvel at soil as the Earth's fertiliser and one the building blocks of evolution, transforming decaying matter into the birthplace of new life.

The World Beneath Our Feet opens our eyes to the hidden, wondrous world of soil and invites us all to play a part in protecting it for future generations.