Mapping earthworm communities in Europe

Existing data sets on earthworm communities in Europe were collected, harmonized andmodelled to illustrate our current knowledge on their European diversity and geographicaldistribution. Digital Soil Mapping was applied using multiple regression techniques relatingrelatively low density earthworm community data to soil characteristics, land use, vegetationtype and climate factors, that had a greater spatial resolution. Statistically significantrelationships were used to build habitat-response models to construct earthworm maps forabundance, species richness, and diversity data. Although a number of environmentalpredictors were significant in our multiple regressions, geographical factors alone were lessrelevant than climatic factors. Despite differing earthworm sampling protocols, land use andgeological history were the main factors determining demography and diversity of theearthworms across Europe. Case studies from country-specific data sets (France, Germany,Ireland and The Netherlands) demonstrated the importance and efficiency of these largedatabases for the detection of large spatial patterns that could be subsequently applied atsmaller (local) scales. Additional datasets have been later incorporated (e.g. Portugal, Italy,England, Wales, Belgium, Finland, Austria and some countries from Eastern Europe) toimprove our predictions of earthworm geographical patterns. The improved maps will besubmitted for publication in the Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Rutgers, Michiel, Orgiazzi, A., Gardi, C., Rombke, J., Jänsch, S., Keith, A.M., Neilson, R., Boag, B., Schmidt, O., Murchie, A.K., Blackshaw, R.P., Rod, P., Pérès, G., Cluzeau, D., Guernion, M., Briones, M.J.I., Rodeiro, J., Pineiro, R., Diaz Cosin, D.J., Trigo, Dolores, Sousa, Paulo J., Suhadolc, M., Kos, I., Krogh, Paul Henning, Faber, J.H., Mulder, Christian, Bogte, J.J., van Wijnen, H.J., Schouten, A.J., de Zwart, D.
Format:	Article in monograph or in proceedings biblioteca
Language:	English
Subjects:	Life Science,
Online Access:	https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/mapping-earthworm-communities-in-europe-2
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