Soil Invertebrates as Bioindicators of Human Disturbance

The aim of this paper is to try to face up to the increasing demand for soil bioindicators to determine the state of health of the environment. Terrestrial ecosystems are contaminated by a wide range of pollutants originating from different sources and having very different distributions. Animals, plants, and, more generally, ecological community patterns seem to be able to register qualitative and quantitative environmental changes due to anthropogenic activities. A clear and accurate definitive generalization of the response of invertebrate populations to direct and indirect environmental stresses is very difficult; many variables can interact, such as the particular invertebrate species and/or the developmental stage exposed to the stress, the particular environmental stress due to different pollutants, and the environmental physical factors as well, sometimes intervening in complex patterns.