Effects of earthworms on soil physico-hydraulic properties, herbage production and wheat growth in long-term arable soils following conversion to ley were investigated. Seven intact soil monoliths were collected from each of four arable fields. One monolith per field served as a control. The other six were defaunated by deep-freezing; three were left defaunated (DeF) and three (DeF + E) were repopulated with earthworms to mimic pasture field density and diversity. The monoliths were planted with a grass-clover ley and inserted into pre-established ley strips in their original fields for 12 months. Hydraulic conductivity measurements at −0.5 cm tension (K_0.5) were taken five times over the year. K_0.5 significantly increased in summer 2017 and spring 2018 and decreased in winter 2017–18. K_0.5 was significantly greater (47%) for DeF + E than DeF monoliths. By the end of the experiment, pores >1 mm diameter made a significantly greater contribution to water flow in DeF + E (98%) than DeF (95%) monoliths. After only a year of arable to ley conversion, soil bulk density significantly decreased (by 6%), and organic matter (OM) content increased (by 29%) in the DeF treatments relative to the arable soil. Earthworms improved soil quality further. Compared to DeF monoliths, DeF + E monoliths had significantly increased water-holding capacity (by 9%), plant-available water (by 21%), OM content (by 9%), grass-clover shoot dry biomass (by 58%), water-stable aggregates >250 μm (by 15%) and total N (by 3.5%). In a wheat bioassay following the field experiment, significantly more biomass (20%) was produced on DeF + E than DeF monolith soil, likely due to the changed soil physico-hydraulic properties. Our results show that earthworms play a significant role in improvements to soil quality and functions brought about by arable to ley conversion, and that augmenting depleted earthworm populations can help the restoration of soil qualities adversely impacted by intensive agriculture.

研究了worm对转化为ley的长期耕作土壤中on对土壤物理液压特性，牧草产量和小麦生长的影响。从四个耕地中分别收集了七个完整的土壤整料。每个场一个整体用作对照。其他六个因深冻而被破坏；剩下的三只（DeF）被毁了，另外三只（DeF + E）被worm填满了，以模仿牧场的密度和多样性。将整块植物种植有三叶草莱利，并在其原田中插入预先建立的莱利条中12个月。一年中进行了五次在-0.5厘米张力（K _0.5）下的水力传导率测量。钾_0.52017年夏季和2018年春季显着增加，而2017-18年冬季显着减少。钾_0.5DeF + E的体积比DeF整体材料明显更大（47％）。到实验结束时，直径大于1毫米的孔对DeF + E（98％）中的水流的贡献明显大于DeF（95％）整体。与耕地相比，在经过仅一年的耕地到ley的转换之后，DeF处理的土壤容重显着下降（降低了6％），有机物（OM）含量增加了（增长了29％）。worm进一步改善了土壤质量。与DeF整料相比，DeF + E整料的持水量（增加了9％），植物可用水（增加了21％），OM含量（增加了9％），三叶草苗干生物量（增加了58％） ），> 250μm的耐水骨料（减少15％）和总氮（减少3.5％）。在田间试验后进行的小麦生物测定中，与DeF整块土壤相比，在DeF + E上产生的生物量明显更多（20％），可能是由于土壤的物理液压特性发生了变化。我们的结果表明，worm在改善耕地向莱利转化带来的土壤质量和功能方面起着重要作用，而增加枯竭的earth种群可以帮助恢复集约化农业不利影响的土壤质量。