Effects of soil acid stress on the survival, growth, reproduction, antioxidant enzyme activities, and protein contents in earthworm (Eisenia fetida)

Abstract

This study focused on the study of earthworm survival, growth, reproduction, enzyme activities, and protein contents to evaluate and predict the effects of different soil pH levels and determine the optimal risk assessment indicators for the effects. Survival rate, growth rate, and cocoon number as well as four enzyme (glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT)) activities and two proteins (total protein (TP) and metallothionein (MT)) contents in earthworms were determined to characterize the responses of earthworm activity to five soil pH levels. These biological datasets (survival, growth, and reproduction) were compared with biochemical indexes (GSH-PX, SOD, POD, CAT, TP, and MT), mainly using biphasic dose-response models. The results indicated that the soil pH value had significant inhibitory effects on the survival, growth, and reproduction of earthworms beginning with 3.0, 4.0, and 5.2, respectively. The dose-response models (J-shaped and inverted U-shaped curves) statistics indicated that the critical values (ECZEP) of the GSH-PX, SOD, POD, CAT, TP, and MT inhibited by soil acid stress were 3. 46, 3.76, 3.35, 3.54, 3.50, and 3.96 (average 3.60), respectively. In the present study, the fitting curve analysis showed that the responses of the CAT activities and TP and MT contents in earthworm in response to soil pH have the behavior of hormesis.

Biodiversity and ecological interactions of earthworm species from Poonch division Pakistan

“…They reported preferred temperature ranges between 70 and 80 °F. Soil pH is an another important factor that determines the distribution and abundance of earthworms as they are so sensitive to fluctuations in hydrogen ion concentration (Wu et al 2019). pH and some other factors related to pH influence the distribution and abundance of earthworms (Singh et al 2016), so there is a positive correlation (r = 0.14; P > 0.05) between pH and abundance of earthworms (Chauhan et al 2015) lines with present study.…”

Biological monitoring of Soil pollution caused by two different Zinc species using earthworms

“…Metal ions have been found to have an impact on the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE), however, the conclusions of these studies have been inconsistent (Romani et al, 2003;Wong-Guerra et al, 2021;Zatta et al, 2003). Researches have demonstrated that being exposed to organophosphate and carbamate pesticides can result in the suppression of AChE activity in both controlled experiments and factual conditions (Zheng et al, 2013;Wu et al, 2020). The study indicates that avoidance responses persisted during a 48-hour exposure to ZnO-NPs and ZnCl 2 , even when regulated.…”

Ecotoxicity assessment for environmental risk and consideration for assessing the impact of silver nanoparticles on soil earthworms

“…The earthworm's survival was examined after exposure to AgNPs and AgNO 3 in a different range of concentrations, including 0, 10, 100, and 200 mg kg −1 . Surviving earthworms were hand-sorted and counted at 7 th , 14 th , 21 st , and 28 th days ( Wu et al., 2020 ). The following equation was used to compute the survivorship (percentage): Survivability = (N − D) × 100/N where N is the total number of earthworms at the beginning of the experiment, and D is the number of dead earthworms after t days.…”