The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Soil Fauna

animals that inhabit the soil. Soil fauna includes representatives of many groups of terrestrial and aquatic animals. Protozoans, rotifers, and tiny nematodes (nanofauna) inhabit capillary and even film water. Small arthropods, including mites, Collembola, Symphyla, and other microfauna, occupy spaces between solid soil particles not filled with water. Larger invertebrates—earthworms, myriopods, and insect larvae that tunnel into soil (mesofauna)—use all the soil as their habitat. Burrowing vertebrates, such as moles, palaearctic mole rats, mole lemmings, and mole mice, constitute the macrofauna, or megafauna.

One sq m of soil contains from ten to several hundred animals of the mesofauna group and from several thousand to several hundred thousand individuals of the microfauna group. There are thousands of protozoans in 1 g of soil. Soil fauna may be subdivided into animals that permanently inhabit the soil (geo-bionts), organisms that pass through one of the active (feeding) stages of their life cycle in soil (geophils), and species that use the soil only as a refuge (geoxenes). Soil fauna occupies mainly the upper horizons, to a depth of 20–40 cm. In arid localities, only a few species penetrate to a depth of several meters.

Soil fauna, an important factor in soil formation, influences all the properties of soil, including fertility. Its activity accelerates the humification and mineralization of plant residues, alters the salt regime and soil pH, increases the soil’s porosity and permeability to water and air, helps to deepen the accumulative horizon and mix the soil layers, and creates the soil’s water-stable granular structure. Many soil inhabitants, especially insect larvae (such as cockchafers, click beetles, and ground beetles) and nematodes, are dangerous crop and forest pests. Agrotechnical and chemical methods are used to control them.

In many countries, to increase soil fertility, especially of land newly brought under cultivation, the soil fauna is enriched by the introduction of useful species and by the application of compost abounding in useful species.

REFERENCES

Giliarov, M. S. Osobennosti pochvy kak sredy obitaniia i ee znachenie v evoliutsii nasekomykh. Moscow-Leningrad, 1949.
Giliarov, M. S. Zoologicheskii metod diagnostiki pochv. Moscow, 1965.
Giliarov, M. S. “Pochvennyi iarus biotsenozov sushi,” Uspekhi sovremennoi biologii, 1968, vol. 66, issues 1–4.
Chernova, N. M. Zoologicheskaia kharakteristika kompostov. Moscow, 1966.
Kurcheva, G. F. Rol’ pochvennykh zhivotnykh v razlozhenii i gumifikatsii rastitel’nykh ostatkov. Moscow, 1971.
Dunger, W. Tiere im Boden. Wittenberg, 1964.
Brauns, A. Praktische Bodenbiologie. Stuttgart, 1968.
Kevan, D. K. Soil Animals. London, 1968.

M. S. GILIAROV

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References in periodicals archive

The soil fauna was collected using pitfall traps that consisted of plastic containers (10 cm height, 10 cm diameter), filled with 2% formaldehyde containing two drops of detergent, to break the surface tension of the solution to about 1/3 of their volume, being buried in the ground with their opening exactly at soil level.

Edaphic fauna in a vegetation gradient in the Sete Cidades National Park/Fauna edafica em um gradiente vegetacional no Parque Nacional de Sete Cidades

Soil fauna is linked to the processes of nutrient cycling acting on the decomposition mechanisms of both the litter and soil (Machado et al., 2015).

Entomofauna diversity in areas of Caatinga under forest management in the semi-arid region of Ceara

Anderson and van Laerhoven (23) likewise stated that even 271 days after death, the vegetation and soil fauna had not returned to normal.

Assessment of Entomological Remains from Soil Samples Collected from a Pig (Sus scrofa domestica) Carcass Decomposition Site after 13 Years/On Uc Yil Sonra Domuz Lesinin (Sus scrofa domestica) Dekompozisyon Bolgesinden Toplanan Toprak Orneklerindeki Entomolojik Kalintilarin Degerlendirilmesi

For each sampling site, at least one acre of area was selected and 15-20 m buffer zone was left on all sides of each site in order to minimize the edge effect on soil fauna and to reduce the experimental error.

Differential Impact of Different Land-Use Types on the Population Density and Community Assemblages of Edaphic Macroinvertebrates in District Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan

6c), consistent with social soil fauna, such as ants or termites, plastering pore walls with organic matter for stabilisation.

Fabric of soil derived from parna and the riddle of transported pellets

The dissolved organic matter represent the most mobile form of OM in the soil and is released by various processes from the solid phase: simple dissolution, adsorption and desorption processes, exchange protonation and dissolution reactions, biological decomposition of OM, and metabolites released by microorganisms, soil fauna and plants (Kaschl et al., 2001).

Status of Selenium and Trace Elements in some Arid Soils Cultivated with Forage Plants: A Case Study from Saudi Arabia

In addition, the lack of difference between parameters at 90 days indicates a small and temporary effect of the treatments on the soil fauna.

Effect of castor cake and elephant grass composting on edaphic fauna/Efeito da torta de mamona e do capim-elefante compostagem sobre a fauna edafica

Variable emission amounts demonstrate the seasonality of C[O.sub.2] fluxes from soils and soil fauna, including possible emissions from subterranean termites.

C[O.sub.2] emissions from soil on Oklahoma's Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in the Presence or absence of termites (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae)