Impact of soil engineering by two contrasting species of earthworms on their dispersal rates |
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| Affiliation: | 1. IRD, IEES-P, 32 avenue Henri-Varagnat, 93143 Bondy cedex, France;2. Centre for Biological Studies of Chizé CNRS-UMR 7372, 79360 Villiers-en-Bois, France;3. EA 1293 ECODIV, SFR SCALE, UFR Sciences et Techniques, Université de Rouen, 76821 Mont Saint Aignan cedex, France;4. Université de Créteil, Bioemco, 61 avenue du Général De Gaulle, 94010 Créteil cedex, France;5. UPMC University Paris 06, IEES-P, 7 quai Saint Bernard, 75005 Paris, France;1. University of California, Davis, Department of Communication, Kerr Hall 369, Davis, CA 95616, United States;2. University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication, 3620 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States;3. University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Communication, Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90007, United States;1. Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of British Columbia, 6339 Stores Road, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4;2. Department of Geography, The University of British Columbia, 1984 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2;3. Faculty of Land and Food Systems, The University of British Columbia, 2357 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4;4. Ecosystem Science and Management Program, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, Canada V2N 4Z9;1. National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA), Regional Center of Kenitra, Road of Sidi Yahia, B.P 257, Kenitra, Morocco;2. Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Macdonald Campus of McGill University, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, H9X3V9, Canada;1. Environmental Studies Program, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA;2. Department of Earth Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA;3. Department of Plant & Soil Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 05405, USA;4. Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA;1. Departamento de Zoología y Antropología Física, Facultad de Biología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Calle José Antonio Novais, 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain;2. Environmental Toxicology and Biology, Department of Mathematical Physics and Fluids, Facultad de Ciencias UNED, Calle Senda Del Rey 9, 28040 Madrid, Spain;3. Museum of Comparative Zoology, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA |
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| Abstract: | By burrowing galleries and producing casts, earthworms are constantly changing the structure and properties of the soils in which they are living. These changes modify the costs and benefits for earthworms to stay in the environment they modify. In this paper, we measured experimentally how dispersal behaviour of endogeic and anecic earthworms responds to the cumulative changes they made in soil characteristics. The influence of earthworm activities on dispersal was studied in standardised mesocosms by comparing the influence of soils modified or not modified by earthworm activities on earthworm dispersal rates.The cumulative use of the soil by the earthworms strongly modified soil physical properties. The height of the soil decreased over time and the amount of aggregates smaller than 2 mm decreased in contrast to aggregates larger than 5 mm that increased. We found that: (i) earthworm activities significantly modified soil physical properties (such as bulk density, soil strength and soil aggregation) and decreased significantly the dispersal rates of the endogeic species, whatever the species that modified the soil; (ii) the decreasing in the dispersal proportion of the endogeic species suggests that the cost of engineering activities may be higher than the one of dispersal; (iii) the dispersal of the anecic species appeared to be not influenced by its own activities (intra-specific influences) or by the activities of the endogeic species (inter-specific influences). Overall these results suggest that the endogeic species is involved in a process of niche construction, which evolved jointly with its dispersal strategy. |
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| Keywords: | Dispersal Earthworms Feedback Intra- and inter-specific interactions Soil structure |
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