With no more than a couple of thousand years of experience, humankind has developed some innovative techniques to leverage the subsurface for a variety of beneficial functions. In contrast, nature has had the benefit of several billion years to initially design and subsequently evolve the manner in which flora and fauna practices soil mechanics. This paper uses two examples of biota to compare how nature has evolved its solutions in contrast to what humans have done and identifies enhancements that humans could exploit through a deliberate mimicking of what nature has done (i.e. bioinspiration). In particular, a comparison of selected aspects of ant-soil interaction and root-soil interaction are used to illustrate where significant potential exists in the emerging field of bio-geotechnics. The paper describes the salient characteristics of the framework by which nature designs its technology, and in turn, a methodology by which humans can augment our current design processes.
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