On top of that, beneficial fungi can outcompete damaging fungi in the soil and make plants more disease-resistant. As decomposers, mushrooms are a valuable part of local ecosystems. But mushrooms ...

Compost, the dark, crumbly, earthy-smelling material produced by natural decomposers, provides many benefits to gardeners and ...

Cryoturbation, the burial of topsoil material into deeper soil horizons by repeated freeze ... facultative anaerobic decomposers of SOM such as members of the Actinobacteria, which were found ...

"Our focus was on the energy cycles in the soil food web—meaning the energy that is passed on from decomposers and herbivores to small predators," says co-author Professor Nico Eisenhauer from iDiv.

Farmers can also use inorganic fertilisers on soil to overcome specific mineral deficiencies, although this does not require the involvement of decomposers.