Funded by EC2CO
PI: Nicolas Bottinelli
Partnership: France (CNRS, INRAE, IRD) and Vietnam (VAAS and VAST)
Description
This project aims at better understanding the dynamics of organic matter (OM) in earthworm casts at the scale of a small catchment in northern Vietnam. We propose to study the dynamics of production and degradation of the casts produced by the anecic earthworm Amynthas adexilis and to define the impact on the fate of OM within the casts. The questions asked in this project are: (i) What is the influence of the soil moisture and the availability of the litter on the quantity and the quality of the OM incorporated in the casts? (ii) What is the influence of climate (i.e., rainfall and wetting / drying cycle) on the dynamics of OM in the casts during their degradation? All the questions asked in this project (OM content of soils = f (production × degradation of turricules) will make it possible to model the impact of earthworms on carbon storage in tropical soils at the catchment scale and in response to expected climate change.
