I conducted this project as part of Professor Pringle's EEB321 class at Princeton University.

It is widely known that vegetation cover is important for reducing soil erosion because organic matter improves the structural stability of soil particles. This made me curious to see what soil structure looks like up close. To do so, I collected some soil samples from a site with high leaf cover, with the assumption that the soil would contain a high amount of organic matter from the decaying leaves:



I observed that the soil samples contained small clumps of soil with large surface areas:


I was curious how this property of the soil may relate to the benefits of organic matter. After doing some research, I found that organic matter reduces soil erosion by acting as a binding agent for aggregates near the surface (source), so it made sense that I observed small clumps of soil instead of loose soil particles. It is really cool how I was able to see this come into action under the foldscope! This leads me to wonder what soil without organic matter looks like under a foldscope.