Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

Soil is a living archive of the Earth system

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 4, pages 421–423 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Soil records information about past environmental and ecological conditions, yet little is known about mechanisms of memory, transmission of information across space and time, and potential consequences for ecosystem functioning. More systematic inclusion of soil memory in Earth system models can account for complex land surface responses to disturbances and changing climate.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Carriers of soil memory integrate information from the past.

References

  1. Targulian, V. & Bronnikova, M. Soil memory: theoretical basics of the concept, its current state, and prospects for development. Eurasian Soil Sci. 52, 243 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Janzen, H. H. The soil remembers. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 80, 1429–1432 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Carini, P. et al. Relic DNA is abundant in soil and obscures estimates of soil microbial diversity. Nat. Microbiol. 2, 16242 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Foucher, A. et al. Persistence of environmental DNA in cultivated soils: implication of this memory effect for reconstructing the dynamics of land use and cover changes. Sci. Rep. 10, 10502 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Canarini, A. et al. Ecological memory of recurrent drought modifies soil processes via changes in soil microbial community. Nat. Commun. 12, 5308 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Khalighi, M., Sommeria-Klein, G., Gonze, D., Faust, K. & Lahti, L. Quantifying the impact of ecological memory on the dynamics of interacting communities. PLoS Comput. Biol. 18, e1009396 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Koster, R. D. & Suarez, M. J. Soil moisture memory in climate models. J. Hydrometeorol. 2, 558–570 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Ghannam, K. et al. Persistence and memory timescales in root-zone soil moisture dynamics. Water Resour. Res. 52, 1427–1445 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Fisher, R. A. & Koven, C. D. Perspectives on the Future of Land Surface Models and the Challenges of Representing Complex Terrestrial Systems. J. Adv. Model. Earth System. 12, e2018MS001453 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soil Science and Engineering, University of Maragheh, Maragheh, Iran

    Mehdi Rahmati

  2. Agrosphere Institute IBG-3, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany

    Mehdi Rahmati, Wulf Amelung, Roland Bol, Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen, Carsten Montzka, Jan Vanderborght & Harry Vereecken

  3. Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Dani Or

  4. Division of Hydrologic Sciences (DHS), Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV, USA

    Dani Or

  5. Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES)- Soil Science and Soil Ecology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Wulf Amelung & Sara L. Bauke

  6. School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, UK

    Roland Bol

Authors
  1. Mehdi Rahmati
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dani Or
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wulf Amelung
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sara L. Bauke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Roland Bol
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Carsten Montzka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Jan Vanderborght
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Harry Vereecken
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mehdi Rahmati.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rahmati, M., Or, D., Amelung, W. et al. Soil is a living archive of the Earth system. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 421–423 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00454-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00454-5

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene