GBIF Information system soil organisms: Coordination for the national and international assessment of the animal groups of Lumbricidae and Enchytraeidae

Edaphobase is a database project aiming to bring together information concerning taxonomy and ecology of important soil invertebrate taxa. Data will be extracted from literature, collections and unpublished material from research institutions with a focus on Germany and its neighboring countries. Linking such data on different soil organism groups from several trophic levels with climatic, habitat and geographical data will allow detailed analyses of their geographical distribution as well as the ecological requirements of single species such as preferences for temperature, pH, moisture or nitrogen content or effects of anthropogenic impacts. In addition, prognostic tools will be provided to discern changes within soil organism communities as a reaction to, e.g. modifications in land-use techniques or effects of climatic changes. The final data set will be available for public access via a web-based application, including investigations tools for the construction of fine-scaled distribution maps or estimations of threats to soil organism distribution. In a first step, functionally important soil taxa will be covered for which valuable amounts of information are available from both literature and collections, such as Lumbricidae (earthworms) and Enchytraeidae (potworms) will be covered by ECT, while others (Nematoda (roundworms), Collembola (springtails), Gamasina (predatory mites), centipedes, Diplopoda (millipedes) and Oribatida (oribatid mites)) will be evaluated by the partners.

The public portal of Edaphobase can be found at: https://portal.edaphobase.org/