Evolutionary trends in surface water infiltration
Water availability is crucial for soil biota. Compaction from this experiment reduced infiltration rates by almost 3 orders of magnitude (thus the hydraulic conductivity is reduced by three orders of magnitude). The following plots in figure 1 show the influence of compaction on water infiltration.
Figure 1: Evolution of surface water infiltration over time.
It could be expected that most biological processes would also lag by a similar order of magnitude if not extinguished entirely.