The soil food web consists of assemblage of interactions within soil organisms. Most ecological researches focused on the theory with respect to connectedness web, energy flow web and functional web. However, practical applications for established theories to guide the agriculture practice were seldom used. In nature ecosystem, the soil food web play an important role of maintaining both productivity and ecosystem health. In farmland, however, most of these functions were replaced by agrochemicals such as fertilizer and pesticides, which result in many environment problems. In order to maintain high crop yield and protect environmental disturbances, effective soil food web management is necessary.
This paper reviewed mechanisms of controlling the soil food web, direct and indirect methods of measuring the soil food web, and how to regulate the soil food web to healthy status. Understanding these mechanisms provide the theory support and practice guide of achieving a healthy soil food web. To address the mechanism of controlling the soil food web, the paper argued the top-down and bottom-up regulation of soil food web structure and emphasized that bottom-up effects maybe more important in farmland. Also the bacterial and fungi channel within the soil food web were compared. Regarding the methods of measuring the soil food web, mainly focused on the indirect method that uses nematodes as bio-indicators of soil food web structure, enrichment and decomposition channels. Finally, we discussed mechanisms describing how to get the healthy soil food web by regulating the quantity and quality of debris or functional groups by compos tea and a concept mode of managing soil food web are discussed.