INPEDIV - WP Soil Zoology

In the Leibniz Collaborative Excellence project INPEDIV, we investigate the consequences of organic and conventional farming for biodiversity in protected areas. INPEDIV is an interdisciplinary joint project of seven partner institutes under the lead of the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig and funded by the Leibniz Competition from March 2019 to February 2024. By use of traditional methods and new technologies, we are jointly examining agricultural land use effects with a special focus on pesticides on a broad range of plant and animal taxa. Study sites are located in the Rhineland and in Brandenburg. Towards these goals, the Senckenberg Görlitz soil zoologists are investigating the relative importance of local and landscape-level factors for diversity and abundance of soil invertebrates and soil-biological activity. Our species-level focus is on oribatid mites, nematodes and earthworms. We are investigating how their patterns change along gradients of pesticide load, soil nutrient content and management intensity – from farmland to adjacent protected sites.