Earthworm diversity and community assemblage: influencing factors at plot-scale in urban areas

Abstract

Soil fauna including earthworms play a crucial role in various ecosystem functions, thereby contributing to human well-being. The relationships between earthworm populations and environmental factors have frequently been established at regional scales, particularly in urban soils. However, the diversity and community assemblage of earthworms, as well as their influencing mechanism at plot scale, have rarely been studied. Based on the earthworm assemblage from 29 sites in 12 residential communities, the average earthworm abundance, biomass, and species richness were 59.0 individuals/m², 21.7 ​g/m², and 1.59 species, respectively. Based on a generalized linear mixed model, vegetation distribution pattern, vegetative cover type, and surrounding built environment all affected earthworm biomass. However, none of these residential variables significantly affected its community assemblage. Variation partitioning in canonical ordination revealed that edaphic properties, rather than landscapes, played a significant role in explaining the variation in its community assemblage, with an approximate contribution of 23%. The abundance and biomass of earthworms at the plot-scale in this study were consistent with previous studies at regional scales. However, the species richness at plot scale was lower than those at regional scale, suggesting that earthworm biodiversity may not accurately represent that at a larger scale, species-area relationship. The results indicate a shift in the driving factors of earthworm community assemblage from edaphic property variation at the plot scale to edaphic, historical, and biogeographical heterogeneities at the regional scale. Certain species that are sensitive to key edaphic/landscape parameters are potential candidates for monitoring soil ecological health.