text: Types of living soil biota can be divided into categories of plants (flora), animals (fauna), and microorganisms. Plants play a role in soil chemistry by exchanging nutrients with microorganisms and absorbing nutrients, creating concentration gradients of cations and anions. In addition to this, the differences in water potential created by plants influence water movement in soil, which affects the form and transportation of various particles. Vegetative cover on the soil surface greatly reduces erosion, which in turn prevents compaction and helps to maintain aeration in the soil pore space, providing oxygen and carbon to the biota and cation exchange sites that depend on it (Peri et al., 2022). 
  Animals are essential to soil chemistry, as they regulate the cycling of nutrients and energy into different forms. This is primarily done through food webs. Some types of soil animals can be found below.
  * Detritivores
  ** Examples include millipedes, woodlice, and dung beetles
  * Decomposers
  ** Examples include fungi, earthworms, and bacteria
  * Protozoans
  ** Examples include amoeba, euglena, and paramecium
  Soil microbes play a major role in a multitude of biological and chemical activities that take place in soil. These microorganisms are said to make up around 1,000–10,000 kg of biomass per hectare in some soils (García-Sánchez, 2016). They are mostly recognized for their association with plants. The most well-known example of this is mycorrhizae, which exchange carbon for nitrogen with plant roots in a symbiotic relationship. Additionally, microbes are responsible for the majority of respiration that takes place in the soil, which has implications for the release of gases like methane and nitrous oxide from soil (giving it significance in discussion of climate change) (Frouz et al., 2020). Given the significance of the effects of microbes on their environment, the conservation and promotion of microbial life is often desired by many plant growers, conservationists, and ecologists.