The world's crops face a vast army of enemies, from fungi to bacteria to parasitic animals. Farmers have deployed pesticides to protect their plants, but diseases continue to ruin a sizable portion of our food supply.
Writing Thursday in the journal Science, Mazzola and Jos M. Raaijmakers of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology noted intriguing parallels between soil immunity and our own immune system.
Researchers divide our immune responses into two types: an all-purpose defense against invaders, and precise assaults on specific enemies. Soil microbes seem to rely on a similarly two-pronged strategy.
When soils are loaded with microbes, they use so many nutrients that it is hard for a lethal blight or other pathogen to gain a foothold. Some may manage to survive, but they do not flourish - or wreak havoc on plants.