SHORT COMMUNICATION
How Reclamation Type and Age Influence
the Abundance of Earthworms
in Anthropogenic Soils
Jakub Hlava, Oldřich Kopecký
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Faculty of Agrobiology, Food, and Natural Resources, Department of Zoology and Fisheries,
Czech University of Life Sciences,
165 21 Praha 6 – Suchdol, Czech Republic
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2013;22(6):1887-1890
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
In this study we determined the effects of reclamation type and age on earthworm communities. We
focused on forestry and agricultural reclaimed territories in northwest Czech Republic that were recently
affected by opencast brown coal mining. We were interested in both the numbers and the biomass of obtained
earthworms. The results showed that there was a significant difference between numbers of earthworms in the
statistical model with spoil bank age and reclamation type interaction and those in non-interaction statistical
models. With regards to the rapid development of earthworm communities, forestry reclamation is more suitable
for earthworm communities than agricultural reclamation. However, we can assume that differences
between methods of reclamation on the oldest spoils are becoming less evident, and the numbers of individuals
become comparable.