Environmental quality assessment is traditionally based on responses of reproduction and survival of indicator organisms. For soil assessment the springtail Folsomia candida (Collembola) is an accepted standard test organism. We argue that environmental quality assessment using gene expression profiles of indicator organisms exposed to test substrates is more sensitive, more toxicant specific and significantly faster than current risk assessment methods. To apply this species as a genomic model for soil quality testing we conducted an EST sequencing project and developed an online database.