Age matters: Fate of soil organic matter during ageing of earthworm casts produced by the anecic earthworm Amynthas khami

Quality of soil from the nickel mining area of Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, engineered using earthworms (Pheretima sp.)

“…The study by Sheehy et al (2019) showed that the earthworm Lumbricusterrestris increased the potential for agricultural land to store C in macroaggregate -oculated microaggregates. The high organic C content in the soil that is disturbed by Pheretima sp's activity is thought to be related to the organic carbon content of microaggregate blankets formed through the activity of the worms in macroaggregates (biogenic), which could reach two times compared to macroaggregates without the worm's activity (Bottinelli et al, 2020). In this study, it appears that their presence with low abundance increases soil organic carbon content compared to their absence.…”

“…The modification of these structures through channels is formed by the movement of earthworms accompanied by the formation of various classes of aggregates that are unstable (Barré et al, 2009;Zhu et al, 2020). The physico-chemical changes associated with the formation of these new structures could include soil pH, C, N, P, C/N, K, and CEC, and these depend on species, soil type, and land use (Sankar and Patnaik, 2018;Bottinelli et al, 2020;Tamartash and Ehsani, 2021). Nadalia and Pulunggona (2020) reported that the soil pH without topsoil at a depth of 0-20 cm is in the range of 5.61 -6.69 in the mining area of Soroako, South Sulawesi.…”

Chemical composition of earthworm casts as a tool in understanding the earthworm contribution to ecosystem sustainability - a review

“…Not always a high rate of earthworm-associated C mineralisation produces changes in the total carbon of soil (Price-Christenson et al 2020). However, there are many more factors which affect the natural cycle C-N in earthworm presence, like plant roots presence (Suarez et al 2004), the presence of mycorrhizae (Paudel et al 2016, or type and quality of food substrate (Lavelle et al 1992, Marhan andScheu 2005), cast ageing (Decaens et al 1999, Aira et al 2010, Bottinelli et al 2020, cast freshness (Lavelle et al 1992, Decaens et al 1999, reabsorption processes of C and N taking place in the earthworm gut (Lavelle et al 1992), certain climatic conditions or soil physical parameters (McInerney and Bolger 2000), seasonality Kirsch 1998, Wang et al 2021a). Thus, the C content increased along cast ageing, probably due to certain processes like CO 2 fixation, organic matter with the dead-root origin, and macrofaunal activities in earthworm casts (Decaens et al 1999).…”

A common framework for developing robust soil fauna classifications

“…Representative examples of this problem are related to misuses of the classifications by Bouché's (1977) and Gisin's (1943) on earthworms and springtails, respectively. The classes defined by Bouché (1977) are alternatively referred to as ecological categories/groups/types (Bottinelli et al, 2020;Jégou et al, 1998;Asshoff et al, 2010;Bastardie et al, 2005), morpho-ecological or eco-morphological groups (Marriet et al, 2020;Pey et al, 2013), ecophysiological groups (Richardson et al, 2020), functional groups (Milcu et al, 2006), feeding guilds/strategies (Depkat-Jakob et al, 2010;Huang et al, 2010) or ecotypes (Zhang et al, 2018). Similarly, the life forms (Lebensformen) defined by Gisin (1943) are alternatively called eco-morphological life-forms (Rusek, 2007;Hopkin, 1997;Joimel et al, 2017), ecological categories (Ponge, 1993), or feeding/functional guilds (Hopkin, 1997).…”