Soil invertebrates make up diverse communities living in soil pores and on the soil surface, digging burrows and tunnels, processing organic matter and interacting with microbes. Soil is also a habitat of growing concern as many human activities cause soil degradation. This book documents the evolutionary history of soil invertebrates and their multitude of adaptations. Soil invertebrates live in a twilight zone: some have gone down to seek stability, constancy and rest, others have gone up and faced environmental variation, heat, cold and activity. And it all happens in a few decimetres, millimetres sometimes. Check out the wonderful life below ground in this book.
The Selective Environment of the Soil. Evolution of Terrestrialized Invertebrate Lineages. Populations in Space and Time. Reproduction and Development. Mate Choice, Brood Care and Predatory Behaviour. Physiological Adaptation and Microbial Interactions. A Kaleidoscope of Adaptations. Annexes.
Biography
Nico M. van Straalen is Em. Professor of Animal Ecology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he headed a research program on ecology of soil invertebrates. He specialized in ecotoxicology, molecular ecology and evolutionary biology. He became mainly known for his contributions to environmental risk assessment of soil pollution but has many other research interests like human evolution and the origin of life. This book builds on his expertise on springtails, isopods, mites and earthworms.
"Invertebrates are the most numerous and diverse multicellular component of the soil fauna. In this text, Straalen (emer., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) provides comprehensive overviews of the biology, taxonomy, and evolution of soil invertebrates. He also examines their interactions with one another and how they influence the physical environment. This treatise offers a useful resource to practitioners of soil ecology and an introduction to advanced students interested in soils. The author's narrative is clear and approachable, the figures and tables are useful and well rendered, and citations are extensive and current. All ecologists will benefit by reading at least some portions of the text; plant ecologists and meiobenthologists will benefit most. The former will better understand plant-soil interactions; the latter will find interesting parallels among the organisms they study."
— S. R. Fegley, emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, December 2023 issue of CHOICE
