Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2022 number 5

According to the results of soil collections of earthworms in the Omsk Region for 9 years, in the period from 2009 to 2018, their population was analyzed in order to identify the main environmental factors associated with the territorial heterogeneity of species richness and group density. Five types of Lumbricidae populations have been identified, two of which are divided into two subtypes each, where of 10 species and 2 subspecies of earthworms were found. It has been established that the greatest influence on the distribution of worms is exerted by such environmental factors as zonality and subzonality, the depth of the soil layer, and, to a lesser extent, the topography characteristics: 9, 7 and 0.7 % of the considered variance of the density similarity matrix, respectively. In general, all environmental factors and their combinations (modes) explain 38 % of the considered variance, the multiple correlation coefficient is 0.62. Invading species of European origin Dendrobaena octaedra (7-52 %) and Aporrectodea caliginosa (15-74 %) and native Eisenia n. nordenskioldi (6-28 %), as well as of Asian origin: Eisenia ventripapillata (42 %) and E. nana (16 %), for the territories of the southern forest-steppe and steppe, became the leaders in terms of the share of the population density in most taxa of the classification. Such changes in earthworm populations, namely the replacement of native species of the Eisenia nordenskioldi complex with invasive species, can significantly affect soil characteristics and ecosystem services determined by earthworms.