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Water repellency is an important phenomenon in soil systems and is influenced by physical, chemical and biological factors. Studies on the influence of bacteria or surface‐attached bacteria (biofilms) on soil water repellency are rare.

In this study, we investigated the influence of hydrophilic and hydrophobic bacteria on soil wettability. Three different soil bacteria, Variovorax paradoxus, Bacillus sphaericus and an α‐Proteobacterium, were investigated in different states (vegetative cells and spores in the case of Bacillus sphaericus). The bacteria, isolated from urban soils in the Berlin Tiergarten Park and from a sewage field (in Berlin‐Buch), were grown in a bioreactor on sterilized soil samples and in batch cultures on four different synthetic materials with hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces, to form biofilms. Surface hydrophobicity of the overgrown material was determined by the water contact angle, and cell …