This multi-contributor, international volume synthesizes contributions from the world's leading soil scientists and ecologists, describing cutting-edge research that provides a basis for the maintenance of soil health and sustainability. The book covers these advances from a unique perspective of examining the ecosystem services produced by soil biota across different scales - from biotic interactions at microscales to communities functioning at regional and global scales. The book leads the user towards an understanding of how the sustainability of soils, biodiversity, and ecosystem services can be maintained and how humans, other animals, and ecosystems are dependent on living soils and ecosystem services.

This is a valuable reference book for academic libraries and professional ecologists worldwide as a statement of progress in the broad field of soil ecology. It will also be of interest to both upper level undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in soil ecology, as well as academic researchers and professionals in the field requiring an authoritative, balanced, and up-to-date overview of this fast expanding topic.

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The Editor-in-Chief, Diana H. Wall, is University Distinguished Professor and Director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University. Diana is actively engaged in research exploring how nematode and other invertebrate diversity contributes to healthy, productive soils and thus to society, and the consequences of human activities on soil globally. Her 20+ years research in the Antarctic Dry Valleys follows the response of soil organisms and ecosystem processes to environmental change, and in Africa she examines biodiversity in fertile and degraded soils. She served as President of the Ecological Society of America, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Intersociety Consortium for Plant Protection, the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, and the Society of Nematologists. Diana received her BA and Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, Lexington and is a Professor of Biology and a Senior Scientist at the Natural Research Ecology Laboratory. The Section Editors, Richard D. Bardgett, Valerie Behan-Pelletier, Jeffrey E. Herrick, T. Hefin Jones, Karl Ritz, Johan Six, Donald R. Strong, and Wim H. van der Putten, are all leading researchers in this field.