Earthworm communities in grasslands in Central France – Effects of different management practices.
2013
Harms , Imke | Peres, Guenola | Louault, Frédérique | Note, Priscilla | Potthoff, Martin
The ecological value of grassland habitats and earthworms is widely recognized.This study aimed to compare five different grassland management practices and their impact on earthworm communities. In permanent grassland in the French Massif Central field sampling was carried out in April 2011.Abundance, biomass and species richness of earthworms were measured and the effect of mowing and rotational grazing by sheep or cattle at a low and high stocking density was investigated. Species richness was not affected by the grassland management as ten to twelve different taxonomic categories occurred under each management practice. Anecic earthworms, particularly Aporrectodea giardi, were positively affected by grazing, even at the highstocking density of cattle. This observation is supposedly to be explained by the increased food quality due to the return of dung as a valuable food source. In the studied context, earthworms did not differ between sheep and cattlegrazing. Epigeic and endogeic earthworms did not show a consistent tendency in their reaction to the altered management. Earthworms seemed to be influenced by a complex system of interacting factors, especially regarding belowground effects of mowing and grazing. The present study underlined the requirement for further investigation of the interactions within the soil food web and between soil organisms and plants.
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