Soil Biological Indicators of Soil Health for a National Soil Health Assessment.

Soil is one of our nation's most valuable resources that provides life-sustaining functions. Billions of organisms live belowground and perform critical soil processes to support plant, animal, and human health aboveground. By shifting our view of soils from an inert growing material to a biologically diverse and active ecosystem, we can help create more sustainable farms, ranches, and forests to provide food and fiber for our rapidly growing population while protecting land, air and water resources for future generations. The challenge is then, how do we assess the status of soil biological factors important for soil health? Given the vast and critical functional roles imparted by the soil biota in supporting plant productivity and environmental stewardship, means to evaluate, interpret, and implement soil biological properties into a soil health assessment are necessary. The goals of this poster are: 1) identify current and novel biological soil health indicators and explain how they contribute to and support soil health; 2) align indicators with proposed methods for measurement; 3) present the advantages and limitations for each approach; 4) identify knowledge gaps to help promote research in this area; and 5) identify strategies for interpretation and application to help drive management decisions at local, regional, and national scales.