Image #BDK-2: Digging a soil pit at the Badkhyz grassland site, Turkmenistan. (Roman Zlotin [in the pit] and Gennady Domnikov - professor and graduate student, Institute of Geography, USSR Academy of Science - are taking soil samples to 1.5 m depth for study of the amount of nutrients, root biomass, microbial activity, density of nematodes and soil microarthropods. Photograph taken May 1978).