Soil as a complex ecological system for meeting food and nutritional security

Soil is a complex ecological system that has several ecosystemic functions, such as providing food and nutritional security for humans and other animals. One of the most important functions of the soil is to be living memory because its definition is closely associated with living organisms. In addition, when a community or ecosystem that forms part of the soil ceases to exist, some of its parts or properties may remain, leaving behind an ecological memory such as spores, seeds, and structures created as aggregates that contribute to shaping the replacement community. Decreasing the ecological memory of an ecosystem reduces resilience, which in the soil would, for example, increase its susceptibility to the degradation, installation, or expansion of desertification processes. As soil is the main means of supplying food for humanity, taking care of the soil is to ensure our food and nutritional security.