Patrick Lavelle

Sorbonne University | UPMC · IEES - UMR 7618

Abstract: Soils are self-organized ecological systems within which organisms interact within a nested suite of discrete scales. Microorganisms form communities and physical structures at the smallest scale (microns), followed by the community of their predators organized in microfoodwebs (tens of microns), the functional domains built by ecosystem...

In soils that are the basis of 16 of the 24 ecosystem services recognized by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, earthworms play a very important role as soon as conditions allow them to get established. They carry out three types of engineering, physical, community and biochemical. With the energy that they obtain from their mutualistic digestion...

Earthworms and Sphingobacterium sp. are known for their strong organic compound decomposition ability and wide distribution in soil. However, interactions of soil organic matter decomposition with soil properties and whether microbial species such as Sphingobacterium sp. could assist earthworms in carbon and nitrogen transformation in soil remain p...

Background Soil animal communities include more than 40 higher-order taxa, representing over 23% of all described species. These animals have a wide range of feeding sources and contribute to several important soil functions and ecosystem services. Although many studies have assessed macroinvertebrate communities in Brazil, few of them have been pu...

Soil animal communities include more than 40 higher-order taxa, representing over 23% of all described species. These animals have a wide range of feeding sources and contribute to several important soil functions and ecosystem services. Although many studies have assessed macroinvertebrate communities in Brazil, few of them have been published in...

Despite the importance of earthworms for soil formation, more is needed to know about how Pre-Columbian modifications to soils and the landscape. Gaining a deeper understanding is essential for comprehending the historical drivers of earthworm communities and the development of effective conservation strategies in the Amazon rainforest. Human distu...

Aims This study was aimed to investigate the effect of earthworm Amynthas morrisi on the metal bioaccumulation by two plant species, Sedum alfredii Hance (Sedum) and maize (Zea mays L.), in a co-cropping system and possible influencing pathways, and assess the remediation potential of all combination of these organisms to identify the best option....

Plantain (Musa paradisiaca AAB) is one of the most important staple crops in the tropics, particularly in the Caribbean. Pests are the main constraint to plantain production and yield increases may be possible by improving pest management. However, there is a lack of data on these cropping systems and a need to identify new elements of improved pro...

Ecological restoration has the potential to improve and recover soil quality, helping to mitigate soil degradation worldwide. However, soil monitoring is often overlooked in restoration, preventing a comprehensive understanding of how restoration interventions affect soil quality and the time required for recovering different soil properties. Here,...

The application of participatory methods for codesigning sustainable land uses in research and development (R&D) projects for the agroecological transition are receiving increasing attention. However, there has been limited research critically assessing participatory methods employed in a codesign process. We therefore analyze the participatory met...

This poster, designed by Pierre Ganault, presetend the sOilFauna project to the SFE²-GfÖ-EEF conference in Metz on November 2022. The poster is largely inspired by the publication by Mathieu et al., 2022 Soil Organisms 10.25674/so94iss2id282

Understanding global biodiversity change, its drivers, and the ecosystem consequences requires a better appreciation of both the factors that shape soil macrofauna communities and the ecosystem effects of these organisms. The project "sOilFauna" was funded by the synthesis center sDiv (Germany) to address this major gap by forming a community of so...

Aim Macroinvertebrates comprise a highly diverse set of taxa with great potential as indicators of soil quality. Communities were sampled at 3,694 sites distributed world‐wide. We aimed to analyse the patterns of abundance, composition and network characteristics and their relationships to latitude, mean annual temperature and rainfall, land cover,...

The conversion of natural vegetation to agricultural land uses in mountainous Andean landscapes threatens an array of key ecological processes and ecosystem services (ES). In protected areas and buffer regions that provide water to cities, it is critical to understand how interactions between plants and soil communities sustain a range of ecosystem...

• Global insect decline has recently become a cause for major concern, particularly in the tropics where the vast majority of species occurs. Deforestation is suggested as being a major driver of this decline, but how anthropogenic changes in landscape structure affect tropical insect communities has rarely been addressed. • We sampled Saturniidae...

This study was aimed to evaluate the potential of four earthworm species commonly found in South China for the bioremediation of soils contaminated by Cu, Cd, Pb and Zn. Survival rates and metal accumulation of Eisenia fetida, Amynthas morrisi, A. robustus and A. corticis and changes in soil physico-chemical properties were investigated in a 60-day...

Plant communities influence the composition of local fungi, and this has been verified in different biomes around the world. The analysis of the litter structure in a forest reserve in the Amazon has shown that floristic diversity and substrate morphology affect fungal diversity at different scales. Our results revealed that the α diversity of the...

Amazonian rainforests, once thought to be pristine wilderness, are increasingly known to have been widely inhabited, modified, and managed prior to European arrival, by human populations with diverse cultural backgrounds. Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) are fertile soils found throughout the Amazon Basin, created by pre‐Columbian societies with sedent...

Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provid...

Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provid...

Soil macroinvertebrate communities comprise 16 commonly found orders with a vast range of functions and adaptive strategies. They are highly sensitive to chemical, physical and biological conditions found in the different strata of the soil system, from surface litter and humus system to organic horizons down to ca. 30cm depth. This review synthesi...

Os macroinvertebrados são atores muito importantes na construção e manutenção da camada superficial do solo, onde as sementes germinam e as plantas crescem. Eles são denominados de engenheiros do ecossistema, que organizam a atividade biológica e a produção de serviços do ecossistema por meio de seus efeitos físicos, biológicos e bioquímicos de eng...

In the Colombian Amazon, the provision of soil-based ecosystem services is threatened mainly by loss of plant cover. Methodologies are required that allow for a holistic assessment of soil degradation or restoration and associated changes in the provision of ecosystem services. With this objective, we measured macroinvertebrate communities, soil ma...

We investigated the capacity of different types of agroforestry systems to promote the formation of soil mac-roaggregates through biological or physical processes. Soil macroaggregates were visually separated according to morphological patterns into invertebrate biogenic (small and large faunal aggregates), root biogenic and phys-icogenic. We evalu...

Phillips et al. (Reports, 25 October 2019, p. 480) incorrectly conclude that tropical earthworm communities are less diverse and abundant than temperate communities. This result is an artifact generated by some low-quality datasets, lower sampling intensity in the tropics, different patterns in richness-area relationships, the occurrence of invasiv...

In this article, we operationalized a sustainability framing based on the Sustainable Rural Livelihood Resources Framework (SLF), which consists of five capitals-human, physical, social, financial, and natural. We proposed a sustainability index (SI) for two landscapes dominated by two agricultural systems: cattle ranching and small-scale family ag...

Soil is one of the most biodiverse terrestrial habitats. Yet, we lack an integrative conceptual framework for understanding the patterns and mechanisms driving soil biodiversity. One of the underlying reasons for our poor understanding of soil biodiversity patterns relates to whether key biodiversity theories (historically developed for aboveground...

Earthworms are often related to fertile soils and are also frequently used as environmental quality indicators. However, to optimize their use as bioindicators, earthworm populations must be evaluated together with the environmental and anthropogenic variables regulating their communities. This review sought to identify the earthworm-sampling, soil...

Sustainability measurement addresses the social, economic, and environmental aspects in order to support policy and decision‐making. In the Peruvian Amazon, some smallholder livestock farmers have subsisted through time, partially preserving the ecosystems and demonstrating in practice a certain degree of sustainability. In this regard, this study...

In this study the near-infrared reflectance (NIR) spectra signals (750–2,500 nm) of soil samples was compared with the NIR signals of the biogenic aggregates produced in the lab by three earthworm species, i.e., Aporrectodea rosea (Savigny 1826), Lumbricus friendi Cognetti, 1904 and Prosellodrilus pyrenaicus (Cognetti, 1904) from subalpine meadows...

This Handbook of methods aim to provide the different techniques and methodologies to obtain a minimum data set of variables, from soil biodiversity assessment to SOM dynamics, including, isotope analysis, bioturbation assessment and metagenomics. With the knowledge gathered in forthcoming projects and studies, researchers (biogeochemists and soil...

Soil aggregation and its effects on soil C storage have been addressed in thousands of research articles over the last 40 years. Research has been mostly focused on the resistance of aggregates to mechanical disruption and the role of organic matter in aggregate stabilization. On the other hand, relatively little attention has been paid to identify...

Soil ag gre ga tion Soil or gan isms C cy cling A B S T R A C T Soil ag gre ga tion and its ef fects on soil C stor age have been ad dressed in thou sands of re search ar ti cles over the last 40 years. Re search has been mostly focused on the re sis tance of ag gre gates to me chan i cal dis rup tion and the role of or ganic mat ter in ag gre gate...

ContextSoil erosion is one of the main threats driving soil degradation across the globe with important impacts on crop yields, soil biota, biogeochemical cycles, and ultimately human nutrition.Objectives Here, using an empirical model, we present a global and temporally explicit assessment of soil erosion risk according to recent (2001–2013) dynam...

The effects of the native species Amynthas morrisi and the composting earthworm Eisenia fetida were evaluated on the forms of Zn, Cd, Pb and Cu in a long-term contaminated Chinese soil, with and without added organic matter (OM), in a 60-day laboratory experiment (25 °C field capacity). Four metal fractions were extracted using a sequential procedu...

Soils participate in the provision of numerous ecosystem services of great importance for the maintenance of ecosystems and human societies. Physical and chemical soils properties sustain supporting ecosystem services like plant production and the infiltration and provision of clean water. Carbon sequestration is a regulating ecosystem service impo...

In the Pampas region of Argentina agriculture is dominated by intensive no-till (NT) soybean cropping which produce negative consequences on soil quality. A group of farmers started to use the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) which include a higher crop rotation, use of winter cover crops and nutrient restoration. In this NT system earthworms have...

Human activities are accelerating global biodiversity change and have resulted in severely threatened ecosystem services. A large proportion of terrestrial biodiversity is harbored by soil, but soil biodiversity has been omitted from many global biodiversity assessments and conservation actions, and understanding of global patterns of soil biodiver...

The evaluation and success of ecological reclamation can be assessed by measuring soil physical, chemical and biological variables, either in isolation or combined into composite indicators. In this study we tested the suitability of biological, chemical and physical quality indicators-and their combination in a General Indicator of Soil Quality (G...

Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) are fertile anthropic soils found throughout Amazonia, resulting from long-term occupation by pre-Columbian societies. Although the chemistry of these soils is well known, their biodiversity, particularly soil invertebrate communities have been neglected. To address this, we characterised soil macroinvertebrate communit...

This chapter begins by reviewing the importance of soil organisms. It then discusses a historical perspective of the research on fauna, vegetation and soil microorganisms that provides a better understanding of current trends that lead towards an increasingly integrated soil ecology. Progress in soil ecology has always been dependent on the advent...

The Llanos region of Colombia represents one of the last large agricultural frontiers and is undergoing a rapid conversion from naturalized savanna to intensive agriculture with high agrochemical inputs and tillage. This massive land-use conversion has considerable impact on ecosystem services and biodiversity, particularly soil macrofauna, yet the...

Soil fauna includes microscopic organisms such as nematodes (microfauna), mites and springtails (mesofauna), up to larger invertebrates such as worms, spiders, ants, termites and beetles (macrofauna) and vertebrates (megafauna) such as amphibians, reptiles and mammals. This chapter explains how their activity is important for soil health and can re...

Prod 2018-76b équipe EA SPE BIOME INRA AGROSUP

Earthworms, as ecosystem engineers, help to mineralize soil organic matter, construct and maintain soil structure, and often stimulate plant growth and protect plants from pests. The aim of this study was (i) to determine the connection between earthworm traits and indicators of soil ecosystem services and (ii) to identify earthworm “response” trai...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

Figure S1: Database schema. Diversity data in yellow, GIS data in green and Catalogue of Life data in blue. The diversity tables datasource, study, site, measuredtaxon and diversitymeasurement follow the structure described in ‘Methods’ in the main text and in Hudson et al. (2014): a datasource is associated with one or more study records, each of...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

Agrarian reform has become at highly topical issue in Brazil and is proceeding mainly along the Amazonian pioneer fronts, thus jeopardising the continuity of forest cover. Although it is sometimes accompanied by highly proactive policies for sustainable development, the results of these policies are extremely variable. In this article, we compare f...

Soil organic matter (SOM) is key to maintaining soil fertility, mitigating climate change, combatting land degradation, and conserving above- and below-ground biodiversity and associated soil processes and ecosystem services. In order to derive management options for maintaining these essential services provided by soils, policy makers depend on ro...

Quantifying and mapping ecosystem services (ES), their indicators and their relationships is of crucial importance for environmental management. In this article, we analyze the spatial distribution of multiple-ES indicators at three locations on the pioneer fronts of the Brazilian Amazon. We identify trade-offs and synergies between six ES indicato...

Land-use change and intensification threaten bee populations worldwide, imperilling pollination services. Global models are needed to better characterise, project, and mitigate bees' responses to these human impacts. The available data are, however, geographically and taxonomically unrepresentative; most data are from North America and Western Euro...

What is soil biodiversity ? How does it vary in space and time ? What does it provide to society ? What are the main threats to soil biodiversity ? What can we do to preserve it ? The first ever Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas uses informative texts, stunning photographs and striking maps to answer and explain these and other questions. Going throug...

Key messages • Soil is an important habitat for thousand millions of organisms. • Soil biodiversity is extremely diverse in shapes, colours, sizes and functions. • Soil biodiversity is globally distributed, from deserts to polar regions through grasslands, forests, urban and agricultural areas. • Soil biodiversity supports many services essential t...