Earthworms as ploughs and bioreactors: understanding mechanical and biogeochemical impacts for sustainable soils

蚯蚓是生态系统工程师；挖洞对土壤产生重大影响，导致大量颗粒运动，影响土壤物理性质，并影响许多土壤生态系统服务，包括食物生产、水分保持和碳储存。然而，生物扰动和蚯蚓对不同土地管理技术和气候变化的反应目前受到的限制很少。这阻碍了将土壤生物扰动纳入对管理和气候变化的景观响应的稳健预测模型中。初步发现，发光信号可以检测到矿物质颗粒何时被输送到地表，然后被埋在土壤剖面中。当土壤通过肠道时，蚯蚓还会影响谷物上的矿物涂层，影响发光信号的响应方式，因此这个项目还将研究微生物-矿物涂层的关系，以更好地了解土壤中的生物地球化学功能。

Earthworms are ecosystem engineers; burrowing significantly impacts soil causing substantial particle movement, influencing soil physical properties and affecting many soil ecosystem services including food production, water retention and carbon storage. However, rates of bioturbation and earthworm responses to different land management techniques and climate change are currently poorly constrained. This hinders the incorporation of soil bioturbation within robust predictive models of landscape response to changes in management and climate. Preliminary findings show that luminescence signals can detect when mineral grains are transported to the surface and subsequently become buried in the soil profile. Earthworms also impact mineral coatings on grains as soil passes through the gut, affecting how luminescence signals respond, so this project will also study microbial-mineral coating relationships providing better understanding of biogeochemical functioning within soil.