ABSTRACT
In this chapter we deal with methods for the inventory of soil macrofauna. The macrofauna group comprises those soil animals that are more than 1cm long or have a width or diameter of more than 2mm. A diversity of soil organisms is included in this category (Chapter 1), but in this chapter we concentrate on the most significant groups: the earthworms, termites, ants and beetles. The earthworms are probably the most important soil invertebrates in temperate regions, but in tropical environments this role is taken over by termites and ants. Many macrofauna play an important role in soil ecosystems as soil engineers, especially in tropical environments, significantly influencing the physical and chemical properties of the soils they inhabit, especially by the creation of macropores and transformation and redistribution of organic matter. Others are comminuters, shredding organic matter, and a number of groups are macropredators. Because of their important role in ecosystem processes and their sensitivity to the environmental conditions, macrofaunal groups are often used (or proposed) as indicators of soil biological quality and therefore form an important component of the soil biota, indicative of overall soil biodiversity and effects of land use change and management practices. Further, because of their generally high relative biomass they form an important constituent of the foodweb in the soil. For the use of abundance biomass and diversity data as indicators for monitoring effects of land use change, standardized methods need to be applied. This chapter describes proposed methods for the inventory of macrofauna as they were applied in the CSM-BGBD project. The proposed methods are intended for application in tropical environments, but may nevertheless be more widely applicable.
