Integrating earthworm movement and life history through dynamic energy budgets

Abstract

Earthworms are considered ecosystem engineers and, as such, they are an integral part of the soil ecosystem. The movement of earthworms is significantly influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and soil properties. As movement may directly be linked to food ingestion, especially of endogeic species like Aporrectodea caliginosa, changes in those environmental factors also affect life history traits such as growth and reproduction.In our laboratory studies, earthworms showed a decrease in burrowing activity with decreasing moisture levels and, to some extent, the organic matter content. The burrowing activity of earthworms was also affected by temperature, for which the casts produced per earthworm was used as a proxy in laboratory experiments. We integrated changes in earthworm movement and life histories in response to temperature, soil organic matter content and the moisture level, as observed in our experiment and reported in the literature, through dynamic energy budget (DEB) modelling. The joint parametrization of a DEB model for A. caliginosa based on movement and life history data revealed that food ingestion via movement is an integral part of the earthworms’ energy budgets. Our findings highlight the importance of soil properties to be considered in the model development for earthworms. Furthermore, by understanding and incorporating the effect of environmental factors on the physiology, this mechanistic approach can help assess the impact of environmental changes such as temperature rise or drought.

A spatiotemporally explicit modeling approach for more realistic exposure and risk assessment of off‐field soil organisms

“…The EAEs introduced here can be used to refine standard RA, and yet should be regarded as an interim solution as SPGs for soil organisms are concerned with biological entities, and hence require corresponding modeling endpoints like the population level (EFSA PPR Panel, 2017). As effect models are also becoming increasingly more available for RA purposes (Bart et al, 2021;Forbes et al, 2020;Gergs et al, 2022;Johnston et al, 2014aJohnston et al, , 2014bJohnston et al, , 2018Meli et al, 2013;Raimondo et al, 2021;Rakel et al, 2020;Reed et al, 2016;Roeben et al, 2020), an important next step is to integrate effect models into xOffFieldSoil, and so directly link them to the exposure module in required spatial and temporal resolutions. The outcome of xOffFieldSoil then provides biological AEs and their spatiotemporal scales directly addressing SPGs of off-field soil organisms.…”

Intermediate‐tier options in the environmental risk assessment of plant protection products for soil invertebrates—Synthesis of a workshop

“…In this regard, ecological modeling in combination with analytical measurements of chemical residues over the test period can help to understand the actual exposure that is experienced by the organism under investigation, once ecological models have been validated. The specific exposure of organisms to contaminants could be refined through simulation of realistic movement of the organisms in the soil profile over time and using toxicokinetic toxicodynamic modeling on the individual level (Forbes et al, 2021; Gergs et al, 2022; Roeben et al, 2020). However, Toschki et al (2020) showed long‐lasting effects of chemicals persisting after surface spray application on soil organisms living also in deeper soil layers.…”

Individual energetics scale up to community coexistence: Movement, metabolism and biodiversity dynamics in fragmented landscapes

“…Milles et al, 2020;Rybicki et al, 2020), but they neglect detailed individual energetics, which are increasingly popular for single-species applications (e.g. Boult et al, 2018;Gallagher et al, 2021;Gergs et al, 2022;Malishev et al, 2018). While some metabolic fish community models have been presented (e.g.…”