Soil invertebrates are the main food resource for birds and small mammals. The migration of mercury into webs terrestrial ecosystems is still poorly investigated. content in soil, earthworms, wolf spiders harvesters forest park zone Cherepovets (Vologda region) was determined. collection material carried out on 5 sites (birch-aspen forest, wet pine dry meadow, meadow) differing composition vege...

Earthworms are a very rich source of enzymes useful for bioremediation of contaminated soils, in animal feeds for improving the digestion of proteins, lipids and carbohydrates, in detergents, in the saccharification of starch, and in human and animal therapeutics. Powdered earthworms are very popular in the Orient due to their properties as antipyretic, diuretic and fibrinolytic. However, in or...

The earthworm family Hormogastridae shows a remarkable disjunction in its distribution in the Iberian Peninsula, with the Hormogaster elisae species complex isolated from the rest of the species. Hormogaster joseantonioi sp. n., a new species found in the intermediate area between the main ranges (in Teruel, Aragón), was described following the integrative approach, as it is suitable for earthw...

Endogeic earthworm activities can strongly influence soil structure. Although soil microorganisms are thought to be central to earthworm-facilitated aggregate formation, how and where within the soil matrix earthworm-facilitated influences on soil microbial communities are manifested is poorly defined. In this study we used 16S rRNA gene-based terminal restriction fragment polymorphism (T-RFLP)...

BACKGROUND Epigeic earthworms are key organisms in organic matter decomposition because of the interactions they establish with microorganisms. The earthworm species and the quality and/or substrate availability are expected to be major factors influencing the outcome of these interactions. Here we tested whether and to what extent the epigeic earthworms Eisenia andrei, Eisenia fetida and Perio...

BACKGROUND Earthworms are important for maintaining soil ecosystem functioning and serve as indicators of soil fertility. However, detection of earthworms is time-consuming, which hinders the assessment of earthworm abundances with high sampling density over entire fields. Recent developments of mobile terrestrial sensor platforms for proximal soil sensing (PSS) provided new tools for collectin...

In recent literature, very few studies have reported the use of the combination of indicators from ecological communities and ecotoxicity biomarkers in field experiments to assess agricultural quality. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the influence of three soil management practices of vine inter-rows (chemical weeding, mechanical weeding and grass-covering) on earthworms, in t...

European earthworms are invading previously worm-free hardwood forests across Minnesota and the Great Lakes region. In many of these forests, earthworm invasions have been associated with the loss of a previously thick forest floor. The ability of earthworms to alter and control ecosystem processes has been demonstrated in agricultural systems, but the dynamics and impact of these invasions in ...

BACKGROUND Recent studies suggested that the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris might act as a seedling predator by ingesting emerging seedlings, and individuals were observed damaging fresh leaves of various plant species in the field. To evaluate the significance of herbivore behavior of L. terrestris for plant and earthworm performance we exposed 23- to 33-days-old seedlings of six plant species...

1 Balkanized research in ecological engineering revealed by a bibliometric analysis of earthworms and ecosystem services. Abstract Energy crisis, climate changes and biodiversity losses have reinforced the drive for more ecologically-based approaches for environmental management. Such approaches are characterized by the use of organisms rather than energy-consuming technologies. Although earthw...