The Unseen World at Your Feet

There is another community at our feet and below the soil’s surface.

A living redwood tree, or any other plant, depends on the decaying plant and animal material around it. Without this material, the nutritional value in the forest would be depleted, leading to a desert forming.

As many as 700 species are constantly feeding opportunistically on any plant or animal material they come in contact with in the soil. If you sit quietly, it would not be long before you see something fall from the canopy. Litterfall , made up of lichens, leaves, branches, pollens, cones, droppings, etc., steadily falls to the forest floor.

This material will be consumed by fungi and bacteria. It acts as the primary pathway for transferring carbon and nutrients back into the ecosystem. Animals such as termites, beetles, millipedes, centipedes, and rodents will also start to break down the litterfall. They in turn will become prey for other animals, as the struggle to live and reproduce goes on at many levels of the forest’s complex, interconnected system.

After the litterfall decays into its essential nutrients, it will be taken back up by tree roots and returned to the canopy to continue the cycle of life. No one event can happen in the forest without it affecting all of the other parts of the forest. The simple act of walking through this area will change it.