Soil supports the food we eat, stores water, carbon and nutrients, and provides habitat for an enormous share of life on Earth. Scientists estimate that more than half of global biodiversity exists below the surface. But soil biodiversity is declining around the world, threatening agriculture, food security and the ability of ecosystems to function properly.
To investigate this hidden world, researchers from the University of Zurich (UZH) and Agroscope, the Swiss federal center of excellence for agricultural research, launched the citizen science project Proof by Underpants (Beweisstück Unterhose) in 2021. The project was designed both to raise awareness of soil ecosystems and to generate scientific data.
Following the same standardized method, 1,000 volunteers buried more than 2,000 pairs of cotton underwear and 12,000 tea bags at roughly 1,000 sites across Switzerland. After two months, participants dug them up, photographed them, and sent the material to the laboratory along with soil samples for further study.
Decomposing Underwear Reveals Soil Activity
The findings, published in Plants, People, Planet, produced a broad map of biological activity in Swiss soils. Researchers found that the cotton underwear broke down at very different speeds depending on where it was buried.
