Macro-Photo.co.uk – Macro Photography Technique and Photos
Weird and Wonderful Wild Mushrooms
Description: A photographic guide to soil animals, exploring the biology, biodiversity and unseen beauty of Collembola, mites, nematodes and the other soil mesofauna living beneath our feet.
An incredible world exists beneath our feet. A stunning photographic guide to the amazing and bizarre soil animals that make up the soil mesofauna. Collembola (springtails), Protura (coneheads), Pauropoda, Forcipomyiinae (biting midges)...
Soil mesofauna are very ancient and unusual soil animals, helping create the first soils nearly 500 million years ago, along with fungi and bacteria, well before flowers, trees and dinosaurs had even begun to be a twinkling in evolution’s eye. They have worked unceasingly ever since, and remain doing the same work in the present time, helping break down humic matter, minerals and bacteria into nutrients that plants can absorb.
In soil science, mesofauna are usually defined as invertebrates, sized between 0.1 mm and 2 mm, although some references increase this to 10 mm. Microfauna, such as protozoa and most nematodes inhabit the smaller world below 0.1 mm. They exhibit animal-like characteristics, and many are as yet undescribed. Macrofauna loosely defines anything bigger than 2 mm, from woodlice, worms, and ants to badgers and anyone digging a tunnel. If we want to talk about them all together, they’re usually known as soil fauna
Macro-Photo.co.uk – Macro Photography Technique and Photos
Weird and Wonderful Wild Mushrooms