Earthworms - Can the soil sound healthy?

Soil biology at a crossroads: developing approaches for ‘looking at’ or ‘listening to’ soil habitats?

Traditionally, earthworm sampling involves digging holes and hand-sorting the soil – which is laborious, messy, and unfortunately the results are not very good – for example, few people know the difference between a Lumbricus terrestris from an Allolobophora chlorotica earthworm. Digging and looking is dependent on a human sense – sight - but what if we stop to consider the main senses of subterranean inhabitants - and develop sensors tuned into their sensing and communication channels instead?

During this talk, Dr Jackie Stroud will highlight curious examples of how animals use ‘tremors’ to send and receive information through the substrate, describe how adapting microphones and geological sensors for soil habitat applications is developing, and play soil recordings so that you can hear the types of crackles, rustles and scrapes being detected. 

Investment in earthworm monitoring could be directed towards improving ecological knowledge (skills in earthworm identification for digging approaches) or sensor networks (requiring consumables and energy use resources). Improving earthworm monitoring has many applications to support farming and conservation and to understand soil habitat processes and biodiversity, for example, are the large-scale declines of earthworm-feeding birds linked to a decline in earthworms, and if so, why are earthworms declining?

About the speaker

Dr Jackie Stroud is a soil scientist who ran farmland citizen science earthworm surveys and is exploring applications for mechanical wave soil sensing technologies.  

We will serve you a delicious farm-to-fork lunch after the talk, where you can ask Jackie more questions and network with the group.

Please arrive at 11:45 am. The talk will start at midday, and lunch will be served at 1:00 pm. 

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