I have not covered any microbes. Are you suggesting that increasing cropland, thus decreasing the number of soil ematodes, is harmful because it decreases the number of microbes? I would agree that increasing cropland decreases the number of microbes, and I would not be surprised if the effects on microbes were much larger than those on soil nematodes, mites, and springtails. From Table S1 of Bar-on et al. (2018), there are 10^30 terrestrial deep subsurface bacteria, 10^9 (= 10^(30 − 21)) times as many as nematodes, and I guess the welfare range of bacteria can seasily be much larger than 10^-9 that of nematodes. However, the number of bacteria per unit area is correlated with the number of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails per unit area, as both are driven by net primary production (NPP), and I speculate bacteria have negative lives. So I believe my conclusion that increasing cropland is beneficial would hold accounting for bacteria.
Welcome to the EA Forum, Scott!
I have not covered any microbes. Are you suggesting that increasing cropland, thus decreasing the number of soil ematodes, is harmful because it decreases the number of microbes? I would agree that increasing cropland decreases the number of microbes, and I would not be surprised if the effects on microbes were much larger than those on soil nematodes, mites, and springtails. From Table S1 of Bar-on et al. (2018), there are 10^30 terrestrial deep subsurface bacteria, 10^9 (= 10^(30 − 21)) times as many as nematodes, and I guess the welfare range of bacteria can seasily be much larger than 10^-9 that of nematodes. However, the number of bacteria per unit area is correlated with the number of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails per unit area, as both are driven by net primary production (NPP), and I speculate bacteria have negative lives. So I believe my conclusion that increasing cropland is beneficial would hold accounting for bacteria.