The Soil Fauna: With Special Reference to the Ecosystem of Forest Soil

The work recorded here was originally undertaken to meet one of the requirements for a B.A. in Forestry at Oxford. As first conceived, the work covered a much larger field than the present article, though in less detail, and included experimental work carried out with Ladell's apparatus (Ladell, I936) very kindly lent by Dr C. B. Williams of Rothamsted Experimental Station. Owing to unexpected circumstances it was found possible to continue the work after the completion of the degree course. I owe much during this further period of work to the ever-ready help and encouragement of Mr Charles Elton, Prof. H. G. Champion and Dr R. N. Chrystal. I am also extremely indebted to Dr B. M. Hobby for checking back to original sources nearly all my references, after my departure from England. The first section of this paper is intended as a comprehensive review of the methods so far used in sampling the soil population quantitatively, together with methods from other fields which have obvious application to the study of the soil fauna. The second part, however, makes no pretence at completehess; rather it is a collection of ideas brought together from diverse sources in an attempt to envisage the interrelations of plant and animal in the soil. The role of the animals is stressed and considered in particular relation to the two temperate soil types, podsol and Brown Forest Soil. No attempt has been made to catalogue the soil animals and discuss their effects on the soil group by group, as this aspect of the work has already been adequately treated in the papers of Taylor (1930, 1935) and Jacot (I940). The bibliography covers a much wider field than does the text, and though no claim is made for more than an introduction to such fields as agricultural pests and mycorrhiza, the relation of soil animals to forest soils and the methods of assessing the soil population are covered as completely as possible.