Index >> Microbes and Lithosphere>> Soil Microbial Communities

Allochthonous
Another community which is quite different from the zymogenous is the population which is totally foreign to the soil. For example pathogens of humans, animals and plants that do not find suitable conditions in the soil to survive get deposited in the soil from various sources and are temporary dwellers of soil. They perish soon if a suitable host is not within their reach. In other words, those organisms which cannot survive in their vegetative stage in the soil (since soil is not their true environment) and those which do not have any adaptations (like spores) to tide over the unfavourable environment are termed as allochthonous (foreign).