Soil mesofauna play an essential role in soil functioning. However, studies on the impact of agricultural management quality, overall abundance and specific groups thereof has not been widely used as indicator developing countries. Here, we a quality compared to more traditional chemical, physical, microbial indicators, comparison three diverse systems Central Cuba: state (CSt), conventional pr...

The cultivation of genetically modified (GM) plants has raised several environmental concerns. One of these concerns regards non-target soil fauna organisms, which play an important role in the decomposition of organic matter and hence are largely exposed to GM plant residues. Soil fauna may be directly affected by transgene products or indirectly by pleiotropic effects such as a modified plant...

The effects of eight polycyclic aromatic compounds on the survival and reproduction of the collembolan Folsomia fimetaria L. were investigated in a well-characterized Danish agricultural soil. With the exception of acridine, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and neutral N-, S-, and O-monosubstituted analogues showed similar toxicities to soil collembolans when the results were expressed i...

We describe and compare the external morphology of eleven clonal strains and one sexual lineage of the globally distributed Folsomia candida, known as "standard" test Collembola. Of the 18 morphological characters studied, we measured 14 to have significant between-strains genetic variations, 9 of these had high heritabilities (>78%). The quantified morphological polymorphism was used to analys...

The genus Folsomides Stach, 1922 is represented by four species in the Iranian fauna, two of which are new to the science. Folsomides halshinicus sp. nov. and Folsomides subvinosus sp. nov. are found in Kermanshah Province (Western Iran). The new species belong to the Folsomides angularis (Axelson, 1905) group and they are distinguishable from other congeneric species by the macrochaetotaxy (11...

Aim Both ecological and evolutionary processes shape biological communities along elevational gradients. Compared to above-ground taxa, patterns of below-ground animals are little studied. Here, we investigated how environmental gradients across elevation may affect species divergence in the past act as filters contemporary assembly soil detritivores via traits. We asked: (1) Are filtering due ...