The soil biomantle can be described and defined in several ways. Most simply, the soil biomantle is the organic-rich bioturbated upper part of the soil, including the topsoil where most biota live, reproduce, die, and become assimilated. The biomantle is thus the upper zone of soil that is predominantly a product of organic activity and the area where bioturbation is a dominant process.
Soil bioturbation consists predominantly of three subsets: faunalturbation (animal burrowings), floralturbation (root growth, tree-uprootings), and fungiturbation (mycelia growth). All three processes promote soil parent material destratification, mixing, and often particle size sorting, leading with other processes to the formation of soil and its horizons. While the general term bioturbation refers mainly to these three mixing processes, unless otherwise specified it is commonly used as a synonym to faunalturbation (animal burrowings).[1][2][3][4]
- ^ Schaetzl, R.J. & S. Anderson (2005). Soils – Genesis and Geomorphology. U.K.: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-11137-2.
- ^ Johnson, D.L., J.E.J. Domier, and D.N. Johnson (2005). "Animating the biodynamics of soil thickness using process vector analysis: A dynamic denudation approach to soil formation". Geomorphology. 67 (1–4): 23–46. Bibcode:2005Geomo..67...23J. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2004.08.014.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Wilkinson, M.T. & G.S. Humphreys (2005). "Exploring pedogenesis via nuclide-based soil production rates and OSL-based bioturbation rates". Australian Journal of Soil Research. 43 (6): 767–779. doi:10.1071/SR04158.
- ^ Paton, T.R., Humphreys, G.S., & Mitchell, P.B. (1995). Soils, a new global view. New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06609-8.
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