David C. Coleman has been a lifelong soil ecologist with interests in soil biodiversity and biogeochemical cycling. He conducted research at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory of the University of Georgia (1965-1971), and the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University (1972-1985). While there, he also progressed through the ranks from Assistant to Associate and Full Professor of Zoology and Entomology at CSU. From 1985 he has been a Distinguished Research Professor of Ecology in the Institute of Ecology and later the Odum School of Ecology of the University of Georgia. He has been Professor Emeritus since 2005.

During the academic year of 1979-1980, Coleman was visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) Institute of Nuclear Sciences and Soil Bureau in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. David received the Distinguished Service award from the Soil Ecology Society in 1999 and the Distinguished Ecosystem Scientist award from the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory in 2002. He served on several advisory panels on Ecology and Ecosystems with the National Science Foundation and on an advisory panel on Alternative Agriculture for the National Research Council. His research has concentrated on microbial-faunal interactions in detrital food webs in agroecosystems, e.g, Horseshoe Bend, near Athens, and in forested watersheds at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in western North Carolina, as part of the Coweeta Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) study. From 1996-2002 he was co-lead PI on the Coweeta LTER project. He was also a McMaster Visiting Research Fellow at CSIRO, Adelaide, South Australia, January-April 2006.

David served as co-Chief Editor of Soil Biology and Biochemistry from 1998 to 2010 and serves as its Review Editor currently. He serves on editorial boards of several other soil biology journals. He has published over 300 refereed journal articles and books and is senior author of Fundamentals of Soil Ecology (second edition, 2004), and the author of Big Ecology: The Emergence of Ecosystem Science (2010).

1. Historical Overview of Soil Science and the Intersection of Soil and Ecology2. Primary Production Processes in Soils: Roots and Rhizosphere Associates3. Secondary Production: Activities and Functions of Heterotrophic Organisms--Microbes4. Secondary Production: Activities and Functions of Heterotrophic Organisms--The Soil Fauna5. Decomposition and Nutrient Cycling6. Soil Foodwebs: Detritivory and Microbivory in Soils7. Soil Biodiversity and Aboveground-Belowground Linkages 8. Future Developments in Soil Ecology 9. Laboratory and Field Exercises in Soil Ecology