Biodiversity is responsible for the provision of many ecosystem services; human well-being is based on these services, and consequently on biodiversity. In soil, earthworms represent the largest component of the animal biomass and are commonly termed ‘ecosystem engineers’. This review considers the contribution of earthworms to ecosystem services through pedogenesis, development of soil structure, water regulation, nutrient cycling, primary production, climate regulation, pollution remediation and cultural services. Although there has been much research into the role of earthworms in soil ecology, this review demonstrates substantial gaps in our knowledge related in particular to difficulties in identifying the effects of species, land use and climate. The review aims to assist people involved in all aspects of land management, including conservation, agriculture, mining or other industries, to obtain a broad knowledge of earthworms and ecosystem services

80% of arable land in Africa has low soil fertility and suffers from physical soil problems. Additionally, significant amounts of nutrients are lost every year due to unsustainable soil management practices. This is partially the result of insufficient use of soil management knowledge. To help bridge the soil information gap in Africa, the Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS) project was established in 2008. Over the period 2008–2014, the AfSIS project compiled two point data sets: the Africa Soil Profiles (legacy) database and the AfSIS Sentinel Site database. These data sets contain over 28 thousand sampling locations and represent the most comprehensive soil sample data sets of the African continent to date. Utilizing these point data sets in combination with a large number of covariates, we have generated a series of spatial predictions of soil properties relevant to the agricultural management—organic carbon, pH, sand, silt and clay fractions, bulk density, cation-exchange capacity, total nitrogen, exchangeable acidity, Al content and exchangeable bases (Ca, K, Mg, Na). We specifically investigate differences between two predictive approaches: random forests and linear regression. Results of 5-fold cross-validation demonstrate that the random forests algorithm consistently outperforms the linear regression algorithm, with average decreases of 15–75% in Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) across soil properties and depths. Fitting and running random forests models takes an order of magnitude more time and the modelling success is sensitive to artifacts in the input data, but as long as quality-controlled point data are provided, an increase in soil mapping accuracy can be expected. Results also indicate that globally predicted soil classes (USDA Soil Taxonomy, especially Alfisols and Mollisols) help improve continental scale soil property mapping, and are among the most important predictors. This indicates a promising potential for transferring pedological knowledge from data rich countries to countries with limited soil data.

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International audienceSoil fauna activities are probably more important than currently acknowledged in determining individual plant response to stresses and overall plant diversity. Here we demonstrate that the positive effect of earthworms on rice could be the result of a systemic effect on plant physiology. Moreover, this effect could improve tolerance to stressors such as parasitic nematodes. In a controlled experiment, an 82% decrease in the production of infested plants was suppressed when earthworms were present. Earthworms had no direct effect on nematode population size. In their presence, however, root biomass was not affected by nematodes and the expected inhibition of photosynthesis was suppressed. In the leaves, the expression of three stress-responsive genes (coding for lipoxygenase, phospholipase D and cysteine protease) was modulated by the presence of belowground invertebrate activities. We document conflicting systemic effects of parasitic nematodes and beneficial earthworms, although we cannot precisely identify the mechanism involved. These results reveal the importance of nontrophic belowground/aboveground interactions for plant health and response to stresses

h i g h l i g h t s• Ecological impacts of sun-grown cocoa farming in Côte d'Ivoire were assessed. • Biodiversity and soil properties were measured along a chronosequence. • Plant species richness and diversity markedly decreased from forest to cocoa stands. • Earthworm abundance and species richness increased due the appearance of species adapted to degraded lands. • Full-sun cocoa farming significantly deteriorated soil quality. a b s t r a c tFull-sun cocoa farming is currently the most widespread cocoa cultivation system in humid and sub-humid Côte d'Ivoire. Higher short-term yields from increasing surfaces under cultivation in this farming system have contributed to the country being ranked as top cocoa producer in the world. However the negative consequences including biodiversity loss, soil fertility depletion and soil quality degradation associated with this system, have incredibly received so less attention that the type and magnitude of such agro-ecological consequences within the current context of climate change are worth investigating. The present study was undertaken in the former cocoa belt of Central-Western Côte d'Ivoire, precisely in the Oumé Department. The main objective was to assess the impact of forest conversion to full-sun cocoa plantations on above and below-ground biodiversity along with soil quality by measuring chemical, physical and biological parameters along a chronosequence of different ages (5, 10 and 20 years). The results are summarized as follows: (i) the conversion of semi-deciduous forests to cocoa plantations resulted in plant diversity and species richness loss due to the disappearance of a huge number of native species while earthworm abundance and species richness increased due to the appearance of species adapted to degraded lands, (ii) soil quality was severely impaired by cocoa farming with the worse scenario being found under the 10-year-old cocoa plantations, * BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 576J. E. Tondoh et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 3 (2015) where SOC, total N, CEC contributed mostly to soil quality degradation. The contribution of these findings to devise options for sustainable tree-based cocoa farming is discussed.

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Summary 1.Stable nitrogen (N) isotope has been widely used to disentangle food webs and to infer trophic positions of organisms based on an assumption that the stepwise enrichment occurs along trophic levels. The enrichment of 15 N in soil organisms with diet humification has also been reported, but the underlying mechanism has not been fully examined. 2. To examine the effect of diet humification on 15 N, we estimated the stable N isotope ratios and diet ages of earthworms and termites. These organisms feed on organic matter with various degrees of humification, ranging from undecomposed plant materials to humified organic matter (soil organic matter), in a gallery forest and a savanna in the Ivory Coast. We defined diet age as the time elapsed since carbon (C) in the diet of earthworms and termites was fixed from atmospheric CO 2 by photosynthesis; it was estimated by comparing the radiocarbon ( 14 C) content of these organisms to atmospheric 14 CO 2 records. 3. Stable N isotope ratios increased along the humification gradient of diets, and values for earthworms and termites varied from 1·8‰ to 9·9‰ and from -1·5‰ to 15·9‰, respectively. Epigeic (litter-feeding) earthworms had younger diet ages (2-4 years), whereas endogeic (soil-feeding) earthworms generally exhibited older diet ages (5-9 years). Grass-feeding termites had young diet ages (2 years), and wood/soil-feeding termites had the oldest diet ages ( c. 50 years). Soil-feeding termites were similar in diet age (7-12 years) to wood feeders (8-11 years), with the exception of one species (18-21 years) that consumes large-diameter wood. 4. A significant positive relationship was found between diet ages and stable N isotope ratios of the two groups in the savanna. This relationship held in the gallery forest when termites feeding on woody tissues were not considered. These results show that the stable N isotope ratios of organisms can increase with diet age, unless C in the diet has been stored as organic matter, such as woody tissue, that is able to age without being subject to humification processes. 5. Given that above-ground food webs are often sustained directly by material and energy flow from below-ground food webs, in addition to trophic interactions, gradual enrichment of 15 N with the humification of below-ground diets should be considered when interpreting stable N isotope ratios of terrestrial food webs.