Page History

Purpose: Enable users to quickly understand what your stand is about.

Instructions:

1. Click on in the upper left to open the page to add and modify content.
2. Write a few sentences in the Excerpt box below that introduce the topic of your stand and the main points you will address. You will see the box as soon as you edit the page.
3. Click on at the lower right to save your change.

Context

The current global challenges such as population growth, climate change following increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, loss of biodiversity and land degradation, require the development of sustainable land management practices . In this context, preservation of soil quality is key, because soils are related to many ecosystem services and are underpinning many sustainable development goals. To develop management practices aiming at positive effects on soil a deep taking advantage of its chemical, physical and biological complexity is required.

Our objectives

We propose to use major ecosystem engineers to enhance soil organic matter (SOM) stabilisation and related soil ecosystem services. We suggest to use earthworms during co-composting with minerals to enhance carbon sequestration through enhancing organo-mineral interaction and to introduce earthworm communities into soils, which lost much of their belowground biodiversity.

Our approach

We investigate the traits of temperate and tropical earthworm species in order to understand their role in soil carbon dynamics. With this knowledge we use the most suitable species to develop ecological engineering applications.