Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
unpalatable food. A microcosm experiment showed clearly that earthworms do not eat the polluted
litter from Zlatna forest. However, other soil-inhabiting invertebrates, such as mites and springtails,
are abundant in the litter. Therefore, the accumulation on the soil surface of a thick undecomposed
leaf litter layer is considered evidence of the interruption of the organic matter turnover food chain
at the level of earthworms, which were proved to be more affected by the pollutants than other
soil-inhabiting invertebrates.
E
FFECTS
OF
S
YLVICULTURAL
C
UTTING
ON
E
NDEMIC
E
ARTHWORMS
Natural forests, with large areas of secondary grassland following forest cutting, cover most of the
Carpathians in Romania. Agricultural Ýelds are conÝned to areas near the sparse villages at lower
altitudes. Nevertheless, substantial areas are affected by sylvicultural cutting, which also jeopardizes
soil invertebrates, mostly on limestone, in which the shallow soils without the protection of natural
vegetation are destroyed rapidly by erosion. The giant endemic
Octodrilus
species, living on small
areas distributed in patches, are jeopardized most. It is considered that the disappearance of the giant
endemic earthworms after clear-cutting endangers the restoration of the speciÝc Carpathian beech
forests of limestone areas (Pop 1982). Only protection of their preferred environment (namely, the
islands of beech forests on limestone) could ensure the conservation of endemic species of earthworms.
In Romania, several projects aiming at the protection or conservation of Þoristic and faunistical
elements of the Carpathians are in progress. The necessity to protect soil endemic organisms as a
new aim of nature conservation in the Carpathians has been discussed previously (Pop 1983). It is
considered that endemic earthworm species are good indicators of particular edaphons that can be
also called
endemic edaphons
. The protection of the biotopes inhabited by the endemic
Octodrilus
species, besides the conservation of these earthworm species, may have theoretical value for the
study of insular speciation in continental mountains.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is our pleasant duty to express gratitude to Dr. Ken Lee, CSIRO, Division of Soils, Glen Osmond,
Australia, for reading the manuscript, correcting the English, and providing valuable suggestions
in preparing the chapter. We are also indebted to Dr. Clive Edwards, The Ohio State University,
Columbus, for the valuable suggestions in drafting and revising the chapter. The second author
expresses her gratitude to Prof. Michael Wink, Institute for Pharmaceutical Biology, Ruprecht-
Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany, for guiding the molecular taxonomy research.
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