Soil organisms - Applications for national forest management

Maintaining health and vigor of ecosystems requires definition of thresholds. Soil quality standards, developed by the US Forest Service Regions, focus on limiting area of impact, protecting physical soil properties, and maintaining some level of organic matter. Soil compaction and puddling, displacement and erosion and severe burning are specific indicators of detrimental conditions. Monitoring results show that many practices can meet soil quality standards, but repeated entries, with ground based equipment, often don't meet standards. Soil microorganisms may be good early warning indicators of declining conditions. Better understanding of below ground communities is important for ecosystem sustainability. Collaboration between the scientific community and managers needs to improve.