Life Under Our Feet

When people think of what lives below our feet, they commonly think of ‘dirt’, but within the soil, there may be more organisms living within it. Just a handful of dirt can contain millions of living things ranging from microorganisms which cannot be seen without the help of a microscope to microorganisms which can be seen with the naked human eye. Common microorganisms in the soil include voles, earthworms, ants, centipedes, and in some parts of the world – the infamous cicada, which in its 17-year lifecycle only spends a few weeks above ground as an adult. My research looks at ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) that spend most of their life within or along the soil surface. Most species are valuable predators in agroecosystems, where they eat a variety of agronomic pests, including weed seeds and insect pests. I am determining which ground beetle species are present in different agroecosystems in Alberta through pitfall traps and what pests they consume through molecular gut content analysis. Pictured here is a ground beetle species known as Carabus granulatus, taken at South Campus at the Prairie Urban Farm.