Soil is one of the most biodiverse habitats on earth, housing billions of organisms per square metre. Understanding the welfare implications of soil management practices is an emerging and important area of animal welfare science.
Soil fauna welfare is an emerging and philosophically complex area. For earthworms, the evidence of nociception and stress responses is sufficient to justify precautionary welfare consideration. For smaller soil organisms, the sentience question is highly uncertain. What is not uncertain is that agricultural practices that destroy soil biodiversity eliminate enormous numbers of organisms and fundamentally impair ecosystem function. Regenerative agriculture practices that protect soil fauna serve both ecological and potential welfare goals simultaneously. As welfare science extends downward through the phylogenetic tree, soil fauna will increasingly demand consideration.