soil - Lublin

ia bind soil particles together, assisting in building soil structure. Humic materials
from bacterial action form organic matter/clay complexes (Lynch and Bragg, 1985;
Ranjard and Richaume, 2001).
HABITABLE PORE SPACE
The structural organisation of the soil creates a mosaic of microenvironments,
differing in terms of their physico-chemical and structural characteristics, representing
many different habitats for the biotic components (Ranjard and Richaume,
2001). Microbial activity within microhabitats is unstable and responsive to fluctuating
substrate availability and physical and chemical conditions. Microhabitats,
variable in dimension, and containing single cells, small colonies or mixed communities,
occur in soil pores - on or near particulate surfaces as well as within soil
aggregates.
Physical conditions of one microsite may be quite different from the adjacent,
leading to the development of microsite-specific communities and thus increasing
the diversity of a given soil. Soil texture and percent pore space directly affect microbial
community composition. Microorganisms adapt to microhabitats and live in
consortia with more or less sharp boundaries, interacting with each other.
It has been shown that more than 80% of the bacteria are located in micropores
of stable soil micro-aggregates