The Significance of Earthworms to Agricultural Practices and Soil Fertility

The ability of a given kind of soil to perform, under the boundaries of the natural or managed ecosystems and to perpetuate the plant and animal productivity, preserve or enhance water and air quality and human health, and livability, is therefore referred to as soil fertility. The most significant living being in the soil with regard to betterment of the soil health is possibly the earthworm. The earthworms are the most abundant soil animals. Earthworms bring in the organization of organic stuff and stir up the soil. At this mixing, the soil becomes fertile as it helps to distribute the organic matter within the soil as well as freeing the nutrients contained in the organic matter to be available to the plants.  An important decomposer of organic material is earthworms. They find their food in microorganisms which are found on organic matters and soil. As earthworms crawl along the surfaces of the ground, they tunnel along their route leaving holes or burrows in them. These are burrows that are long lived underground. Earthworm burrows increase the porosity of soils, thus trapping more air and water into the soil. The soil biota makes all ecosystems sustainable and raises the soil productivity. The cycling of nutrients is one of the important processes required to support life on the earth. Earthworms (EWs) are an important soil fauna community in most of the environments and a considerable volume of macrofauna biomass. They have a positive activity because in some cases it contributes to the optimisation of the soil nutrient cycle through the rapid conversion of detritus to mineral soils. The comminution effect, together with mucus presence due to water extraction in the guts of the earthworms, also leads to the increased activity of many of the beneficial soil microorganisms. The next process is that of organic matter production. Short term, there is a significant impact of high concentrations of nutrients (N, P, K, and Ca) being sequestered in the immediate cast deposits that would be easy to be consumed by plants. Also, earthworms seem to increase the mineralization and rotation of soil organic material. The earthworms may increase the process of nitrogen mineralization through direct and indirect effects on the microbial community. Their increased movement of organic carbon and nitrogen into moving soil aggregates is an indicator that earthworms probably contribute a lot to stabilizing and accretion of human organic matter in agricultural systems and their influence differs greatly depending on land management.