Soil fauna can be an important regulator of community parameters and ecosystem processes, but there have been few quantitative syntheses of the role of soil fauna in terrestrial soil communities and ecosystems. Here, we conducted a metaanalysis to investigate the impacts of invertebrate soil microand mesofauna (grazers and predators) on plant productivity and microbial biomass. Overall our resu...

Soil fauna are critical for ecosystem function and sensitive to the changes of soil fertility. The effects of fertilization on soil fauna communities, however, remain poorly understood. We examined the effects of fertilization form and quantity on the abundance, diversity and composition of soil fauna across an age-sequence of poplar plantations (i.e., 4-, 9- and 20-yr-old) in the coastal regio...

OBJECTIVE To study the impacts of abundance of woodlice, termites, and mites on some functional aspects of soil in order to elucidate the specific role of soil fauna in improving soil fertility in desert. METHODS Fauna-rich sites were selected as experimental sites and adjacent areas were taken as control. Soil samples were collected from both sites. Soil respiration was measured at both site...

Longstanding observations suggest that dissolved materials are lost from fresh litter through leaching, but the role of soil fauna in controlling this process has been poorly documented. In this study, a litterbag experiment employing litterbags with different mesh sizes (3 mm to permit soil fauna access and 0.04 mm to exclude fauna access) was conducted in three habitats (arid valley, ecotone ...

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) are generally considered important active biogeochemical pools of total carbon and nitrogen. Many studies have documented the contributions of soil fauna to litter decomposition, but the effects of the soil fauna on labile substances (i.e., DOC and TDN) in litter during early decomposition are not completely clear. Therefore, a f...

Litter decomposition during winter can provide essential nutrients for plant growth in the subsequent growing season, which plays important role in preventing the expansion of dry areas and maintaining the stability of ecotone ecosystems. However, limited information is currently available on the contributions of soil fauna to litter decomposition during winter in such ecosystems. Therefore, a ...

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...

abstract soil invertebrate and their spatial pattern are affected strongly by environmental factors. spatial variability of soil properties is one of the most important reasons of the macrofauna variability. this study was conducted to investigate the spatial variability of soil properties and soil macrofauna biomass in the riparian forest landscape of karkhe river. soil macro fauna were sample...

Phi coefficient directly depends on the frequencies of occurrence of organisms and has been widely used in vegetation ecology to analyse the associations of organisms with site groups, providing a characterization of ecological preference, but its application in soil ecology remains rare. Based on a single field experiment, this study assessed the applicability of phi coefficient in indicating ...

Global environmental changes affect not only the aboveground but also the belowground components of ecosystems. The effects of seasonal drought and air warming on the genus level richness of Collembola, and on the abundance and biomass of the community of Collembola and mites were studied in an acidic and a calcareous forest soil in a model oak-ecosystem experiment (the Querco experiment) at th...