Underground Life Takes Center Stage as Soil Book Claims Top Ecology Prize

A book that journeys from freshly fallen leaves into the permanently dark, undisturbed depths of the subsoil has been named the British Ecological Society’s Marsh Ecology Book of the Year 2026. The World Beneath Our Feet, written by soil scientist Frank Ashwood and published by Hodder Press on 27 August 2026, was selected as the book judged to have had the greatest influence on the science of ecology over the past two-year period. The award, now in its 21st year, carries an honorarium of £1,000 and is funded by the Marsh Charitable Trust, marking three decades of partnership between the trust and the British Ecological Society.

The recognition arrives at a moment when soil ecology is moving from the margins of biology toward the center of conversations about climate, food security and biodiversity loss. Soils are among the most species-rich habitats on Earth, and the organisms that inhabit them drive processes on which nearly all terrestrial life depends. Ashwood’s book takes readers on a vertical descent through the soil profile, beginning at the surface with plant litter and ending in the deep subsoil, introducing along the way what he describes as some of the world’s strangest inhabitants and the essential roles they play in nutrient cycling, agriculture and carbon storage.

Ashwood is a soil scientist with a research background in earthworm ecology who quickly broadened his interests to encompass the full diversity of soil invertebrates. He is also a passionate macrophotographer, and that visual obsession with the hidden majority of life runs through his approach to writing. In response to the award, he said he really enjoys science communication, telling anyone who will listen about the wonders of life belowground, often with the help of his macrophotography, and that this strong desire to pass on his love of soil ecology to as broad an audience as possible is what ultimately led him to write the book.

The judging panel emphasized the book’s success in making an invisible world legible. Hefin Jones, one of the judges for the prize, described it as an engaging and accessible exploration of soil biodiversity and its importance to ecosystems and human society, noting that its major strength lies in Ashwood’s ability to communicate complex ecological processes through vivid descriptions of the largely unseen organisms that sustain soils. Fellow judge Ken Thompson said there are jaw-dropping facts on every page and that Ashwood’s narrative is greatly enlivened by his personal encounters with soil life, adventures that lend the text an immediacy and excitement making it an entertaining read.

Understanding why a popular book on soil deserves ecology’s book prize requires appreciating just how much is happening beneath a single step. A handful of grassland soil can contain billions of microorganisms and hundreds of invertebrate species spanning bacteria, fungi, protists, nematodes, mites, springtails, enchytraeids, earthworms and insect larvae. These organisms form a food web that decomposes organic matter, restructures mineral particles, regulates the flow of water and gases, and determines how much carbon is locked away versus released back to the atmosphere. Decomposition alone, the sequential breakdown of dead plant material by fungi, bacteria and their invertebrate grazers, is the process that returns nutrients locked in litter to forms that plant roots can absorb, effectively powering every forest and grassland on the planet.

The structural engineers of this underworld are the ecosystem engineers, a term most famously associated with earthworms, the group in which Ashwood began his research career. Earthworms ingest mineral soil and organic debris, mix them in their guts, and excrete casts that alter soil aggregation, porosity and microbial activity. Their burrows create macropores that channel rainfall into the profile, reducing surface runoff and erosion while giving roots low-resistance pathways to depth. Different ecological groups of earthworms occupy distinct niches, from litter-dwelling surface species to deep-burrowing anecic forms that pull organic matter down into permanent vertical burrows, and their combined activity can transform the physical architecture of an entire soil profile within years.

Below the reach of most earthworm activity lies the subsoil, the zone Ashwood’s book treats as its final destination. Subsoils are typically lower in organic matter and oxygen but enormously important as reservoirs of mineral nutrients, as sites of long-term carbon stabilization, and as habitats for specialized microbial communities adapted to scarcity. Carbon that reaches depth through leaching, root death or the transport of fine particulate organic matter can persist for centuries to millennia when protected on mineral surfaces or inside stable aggregates. The organisms that govern whether carbon is respired to carbon dioxide or stabilized in place are therefore directly implicated in one of the central feedbacks of the global climate system, which is a large part of why soil biodiversity has become a priority for researchers and policymakers alike.

Agriculture sits at the sharp end of these processes. Soil fauna and microbes underpin the fertility of farmland by mineralizing nitrogen and phosphorus, suppressing pathogens, improving water-holding capacity and building the aggregate structure that resists compaction. Intensive tillage, monoculture and agrochemical pressure can simplify belowground communities, and a growing body of research links that simplification to declining soil health. Books that translate this science for a general audience perform a function that technical literature cannot, building the public understanding and political will needed to treat soil as a living resource rather than an inert growing medium. The Marsh Ecology Book of the Year has a history of rewarding exactly this kind of influential communication, and the judges’ comments suggest Ashwood’s combination of rigorous content and personal narrative continues that tradition.

The prize itself reflects an unusual and durable model of partnership between a learned society and a charitable funder. The Marsh Charitable Trust supports a wide range of recognition schemes across conservation, culture and the arts, and 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of its collaboration with the British Ecological Society. Awarded to the book judged to have exerted the greatest influence on the science of ecology in any two-year period, the Marsh Ecology Book of the Year has become one of the most visible honors for ecological writing, and The World Beneath Our Feet is its 21st winner. Ashwood will receive the award in person during a ceremony at the BES Annual Meeting, which runs from 14 to 17 December 2026 in Birmingham and will bring together more than 1,500 ecologists to discuss the latest advances across the whole discipline.

For a field whose subject matter is literally underfoot, soil ecology has long struggled for visibility against charismatic megafauna and distant ecosystems, which makes this award more than a ceremonial pat on the back. It signals that the scientific community regards the communication of belowground biology as central to ecology’s public mission at a time when soils are being lost to erosion, degradation and sealing far faster than they can form. Ashwood’s descent from litter layer to subsoil offers readers a narrative structure for a world they will never see with the naked eye, populated by organisms whose quiet work cycles nutrients, feeds crops and stores carbon. If the judges are right that jaw-dropping facts crowd every page, the book may do for the soil what earlier classics of nature writing did for oceans and rainforests: make the invisible both vivid and worth fighting for. The World Beneath Our Feet is published by Hodder Press, with cover design by Holly Ovenden.

Subject of Research: Soil ecology and the recognition of popular science writing on soil biodiversity through the British Ecological Society's Marsh Ecology Book of the Year award

Article Title: The World Beneath Our Feet wins the British Ecological Society Book of the Year 2026

Article References: The World Beneath Our Feet wins the British Ecological Society Book of the Year 2026. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: soil ecology, soil biodiversity, British Ecological Society, Marsh Ecology Book of the Year, Frank Ashwood, earthworms, nutrient cycling, carbon storage, decomposition, ecosystem engineers, science communication, subsoil