Why, when, and how microbes can benefit ecological restorations: current approaches and future directions.
Crawford KM, Dice CG, Clark GS
Soil Health
Health of your garden, local park, or nearby forest depends on invisible soil life that doesn't automatically recover after construction, pollution, or farming — meaning land we think is 'restored' may still be quietly failing.
When land is damaged by human activity, the tiny organisms living in the soil — bacteria, fungi, and others — get disrupted too, and unlike plants, they don't just grow back on their own over time. These microbes are actually essential partners for plants, helping them access nutrients, fight disease, and compete with weeds. Researchers are now arguing that deliberately restoring these microbial communities should be a central goal of any ecosystem recovery effort, not an afterthought.
Key Findings
Microbial communities in disturbed soils do not reliably recover on their own, even after decades of natural regrowth — overturning a long-held assumption in restoration ecology.
Adding specific beneficial microbes to restoration sites can meaningfully improve plant diversity and ecosystem functioning, suggesting active microbial inoculation as a viable restoration tool.
Critical knowledge gaps remain, including how climate change will reshape global soil microbiomes and whether microbial restoration interventions could produce unintended off-target effects.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists are calling for soil microbes to be treated as a key restoration target, not just a side effect of recovery. Damaged ecosystems may never fully heal their microbial communities on their own, and without those microbes, plant communities struggle to bounce back.
Abstract Preview
The restoration of terrestrial ecosystems often requires the reestablishment of plant communities, but restorations often overlook microbial communities, which directly and indirectly structure pla...
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