Nine toxicity tests were conducted using a procedure based on the OECD (1984) artificial soil earthworm toxicity test. For each test, Eisenia jet ida were exposed to zinc in a range of artificial soils with differing pH and/or organic matter (0 M) content. Earthworm survival and cocoon production, and the concentrations of zinc in two fractions (nitric acid extractable, water extractable) and t...

India produces around 3000 million tones of organic waste annually. This huge volume of waste(s) comes from agriculture, urban and industrial sources and also from domestic activities. Utilization of this waste material for productivity process is important for both economical and environmental reasons. In the present study an effort has been made to asses the efficacy of E. foetida (red tiger ...

Abstract The objective of this study is to investigate the concentration of PCDD/DFs and dioxin-like PCBs in a fallow soil ecosystem and to reveal its bioaccumulation mechanism. Soil, earthworm and lesser Japanese mole (Mogera imaizumi) samples were collected in the two fallow rice fields in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The TEQ concentrations of dioxins in soils (organic carbon base) and earthwo...

A study on the bioremediation potentials of the earthworm Hyperiodrilus africanus (Beddard) in soil contaminated with crude oil was investigated. Dried and sieved soils were contaminated with 5 ml each of crude oil with replicates and inoculated with earthworms and monitored daily for 12 weeks. Physicochemical parameters such as pH, total organic carbon, sulfate, nitrate, phosphate, sodium, pot...

Twenty four study areas of three most widespread soil types (pebble rendzinas, typical brown soils and pseudopodzolic soils) all over Estonia were selected. In each group of soil type, eight fields were selected for studies in 2003–2004. The mean abundance of earthworm communities was the highest in pseudopodzolic soils (107.11±22.4 individuals per m) and lower in pebble rendzinas (47.94±11.25 ...

The utility of temperature gradient gel electrophoresis (TGGE) as a means of analysing the gut contents of predators was evaluated. Generalist predators consume multiple prey species and a species-specific primer approach may not always be a practical means of analysing predator responses to prey diversity in complex and biodiverse ecosystems. General invertebrate primers were used to amplify t...

Despite recent advances in understanding mechanism of toxicity, the development of biomarkers (biochemicals that vary significantly with exposure to chemicals) for pesticides and environmental contaminants exposure is still a challenging task. Carbofuran is one of the most commonly used pesticides in agriculture and said to be most toxic carbamate pesticide. It is necessary to identify the bioc...

an experiment was conducted to evaluate the extracted (es) and mechanical (ms) soybean meals two levels 25% and 35% in broiler chicken feeding. three hundred and fifty two one-day-old unsexed lohman chickens were placed in four treatments by 4 replicates and 22 chickens in each in a 2×2 factorial arrangement. feed intake was increased significantly in starter period by es in comparison with ms....

In a ®eld trial (1985±1996) on a sandy loam soil the effects of tractor traf®c and fertilisation on earthworm populations were investigated. The tractor traf®c treatments compared normal farm practice (`normal') with reduced tractor traf®c (`low'). In the fertilisation treatments, three different cattle-manure management methods were compared. The cattle manure was applied as diluted slurry, as...

19 The objective of this study was to relate earthworm assemblage structure with three 20 different soil use intensities, and to indentify the physical, chemical, and 21 microbiological variables that are associated to the observed differences in earthworm 22 assemblage structure between soils. Three soil uses were evaluated: 1Fifty year old 23 naturalized grasslands, low use intensity; 2Cattle...