Biodiversity is one of the great promises of food forests. Not only above ground—with more birds, insects, and plants—but especially underground: in the vast network of fungi, bacteria, and soil organisms that keeps ecosystems healthy and resilient. It’s often assumed that food forests automatically contribute to this. But to what extent is this actually reflected in the data?
Previous scientific research by Jeroen Breidenbach in the Ketelbroek Food Forest had already shown that species diversity in the food forest was high, even compared to the nearby De Bruuk nature reserve. This was true, among other things, for ground beetles and macro moths. A positive effect on breeding birds and insects was also concluded in the Haarzuilens Food Forest. But two examples do not tell the whole story.
That is why it is so valuable that Isabelle van der Zanden, Lieke Moereels, and their colleagues have conducted a large-scale study of soil life in food forests in Northwest Europe over the past few years. The first scientific publication on this research appeared in March 2026. For the study, 15 food forests were compared with nearby forests, permanent grasslands, and farm fields. The researchers examined twelve groups of soil organisms, including bacteria, fungi, protists, nematodes, earthworms, and various groups of soil arthropods. The researchers examined not only the number of organisms and species present, but also which families or phyla were dominant and how these entire soil communities differed from those in the forests, grasslands, and farmlands.
The figure shows the locations of the 15 food forests in the Netherlands and Belgium and how the test plots are distributed within each food forest to sample various soil organisms in a comparable manner.
What does the study show?
The overall findings of the study are cautiously positive for food forests. Higher numbers were found for many groups than in farm fields. Larger soil-dwelling animals in particular—such as woodlice, millipedes, and harvestmen—often fared well. These are precisely the groups that are sensitive to disturbance and dry conditions and require a layer of leaf litter to establish themselves. In addition, fungi (non-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi) showed greater diversity in food forests than in farm fields, grasslands, and even forests.
The composition of soil communities also turned out to be clearly different from that in grasslands and farm fields. Food forests are more likely to harbor species suited to more wooded conditions. At the same time, ecologically speaking, they often fall “in between” farmland and forest. This makes sense: many food forests are still relatively young, and the soil can retain traces of its former land-use history for a long time.
Although food forests score well in many respects, the differences in biodiversity are not equally pronounced across all species groups. Older forests still clearly support different and more varied communities for some groups, while earthworms and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, on average, occur in higher numbers in grasslands.
A hopeful step forward
That is precisely what makes this research interesting. It shows that changes above ground do not directly translate to what is happening below ground, and that food forests are not simply “automatically more biodiverse.” Factors such as previous land use, age, soil type, management, and planting play an important role here. This also points directly to the next step in the research.
Perhaps that is the most important finding of this study: there is now a solid foundation on which to build. Thanks to the large amount of data, the well-developed methodology, and the broad comparison of different land-use types, we now have—for the first time—a much more complete picture of how food forests affect soil life on a landscape scale. It will now be interesting to investigate how both the newly introduced species and the species remaining from previous land use collectively influence key soil processes.
The conclusion is therefore nuanced, but hopeful: food forests show clear shifts in soil life compared to conventional agriculture. We do not yet know exactly how great their potential is, but food forests are a promising building block in enriching and diversifying soil life on agricultural land.
You can read the full publication here.
Measuring Soil Life in Your Food Forest
Would you like to contribute to our understanding of food forests and gain insight into what’s happening underground? Food from the Forest a free monitoring tool that lets you measure soil life in your food forest, such as soil organisms and other indicators of biodiversity. You can also track harvests, carbon sequestration, and other ecosystem functions. The collected data—anonymized—is shared with researchers and universities and contributes to scientific research on food forests. Do you have a food forest or manage one? Log in, create a food forest project, and then go to the monitoring tool.
