Earthworm biodiversity in Morocco: First survey of earthworm richness, diversity and distribution in the Souss-Massa region.

Although earthworms are the key drivers of most valuable ecosystem services and the main indicators of soil health, the existing ecotypes in Moroccan soils are largely unknown. The lack of records for many regions and limited data for others is a major obstacle to making the most of earthworms in sustaining the key ecosystem services they provide. This study investigates, for the first time, the earthworm biodiversity in cultivated soils in 4 irrigated perimeters of the arid region of Souss-Massa. Soil pits (25 x 25 x 30cm, n = 5) at 40 sampling sites were examined by digging, hand-sorting, and using a chemical expellant solution. From the 200 pits dug, 418 adult earthworms and 1182 juveniles were collected. Five new regional records of earthworms, namely Aporrectodea caliginosa, Aporrectodea longa, Aporrectodea rosea, Eiseniella tetraedra, and Microscolex dubius, were identified. A. longa was identified as a new species record for the earthworm fauna of Morocco raising the numbers from 13 declared species to 14. Most earthworms (60 %) were endogeic species in the majority of sampled sites. The occurrence of A. rosea (50% of sampled sites) and A. caliginosa (48% of sampled sites) reflects their frequent detection in the study area. Our results indicate that earthworms do exist in arid and semi-arid climates at significant densities, particularly along the crop rows where the drip irrigation laterals lie.

Effect of earthworms on soil physico-hydraulic and chemical properties, herbage production, and wheat growth on arable land converted to ley.

Effects of earthworms on soil physico-hydraulic and chemical properties, herbage production and wheat growth in long-term arable soils following conversion to ley were investigated. Seven intact soil monoliths were collected from each of four arable fields. One monolith per field served as a control. The other six were defaunated by deep-freezing; three were left defaunated (DeF) and three (DeF+E) were repopulated with earthworms to mimic pasture field density and diversity. The monoliths were planted with a grass-clover ley and inserted into pre-established ley strips in their original fields for 12 months. Hydraulic conductivity measurements at -0.5 cm tension (K0.5) were taken five times over the year. K0.5 significantly increased in summer 2017 and spring 2018 and decreased in winter 2017-18. K0.5 was significantly greater (47%) for DeF+E than DeF monoliths. By the end of the experiment, pores >1 mm diameter made a significantly greater contribution to water flow in DeF+E (98%) than DeF (95%) monoliths. After only a year of arable to ley conversion, soil bulk density significantly decreased (by 6%), and organic matter (OM) content increased (by 29%) in the DeF treatments relative to the arable soil. Earthworms improved soil quality further. Compared to DeF monoliths, DeF+E monoliths had significantly increased water-holding capacity (by 9%), plant-available water (by 21%), OM content (by 9%), grass-clover shoot dry biomass (by 58%), water-stable aggregates >250 µm (by 15%) and total N (by 3.5%). In a wheat bioassay following the field experiment, significantly more biomass (20%) was produced on DeF+E than DeF monolith soil, likely due to the changed soil physico-hydraulic properties. Our results show that earthworms play a significant role in improvements to soil quality and functions brought about by arable to ley conversion, and that augmenting depleted earthworm populations can help the restoration of soil qualities adversely impacted by intensive agriculture.