Colonisation by ground and edaphic invertebrates of soil patches with different pollution levels

Background and Purpose: A key aspect of resilience is the ability of a species to recolonize disturbed areas. The re-establishment of fauna in terrestrial systems is a subject that has been investigated for many years, although most studies have been conducted in laboratory conditions or on selected species. Few studies analyzed the process at community-level in the field. We examined the colonization patterns of invertebrate communities after total depletion and in different degrees of soil pollution. Material and Methods: For this purpose, we established four patches with different environmental conditions: an untreated control area, and three areas where the soil fauna was at first completely depleted by steam sterilization and then three different concentrations of soil pollution were simulated through the addition of pesticides. On five dates (ili On five occasions) we examined the abundance and taxa richness ofedaphic microarthropods and ground invertebrates. Results and Conclusion: Our data show that the abundance and richness of terrestrial invertebrates are strongly related to the presence of a pollution gradient: a high contamination level inhibits the re-establishment of faunal communities, and a low contamination level reduces the entire reinvasion process. We detected a similar pattern of recolonization in both ground and edaphic communities suggesting that above and below terrestrial systems are highly coupled (connected/linked). Our study can be of interest in the assessment of the effectiveness of reclamation measures.