Listening to earthworms burrowing and roots growing - acoustic signatures of soil biological activity
Listening to earthworms burrowing and roots growing - acoustic signatures of soil biological activity
We report observations of acoustic emissions (AE) from growing plant roots and burrowing earthworms in soil, as a noninvasive method for monitoring biophysical processes that modify soil structure. AE emanating from earthworm and plants root activity were linked with time-lapse imaging in glass cells. Acoustic waveguides where installed in soil columns to monitor root growth in real time (mimicking field application). The cumulative AE events were in correlation with earthworm burrow lengths and with root growth. The number of AE events recorded from the soil columns with growing maize roots were several orders of magnitude larger than AE emanating from bare soil under similar conditions. The results suggest that AE monitoring may offer a window into largely unobservable dynamics of soil biomechanical processes such as root growth or patterns of earthworm activity - both important soil structure forming processes.
Lacoste, Marine
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Ruiz, Siul
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Or, Dani
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6 July 2018
Lacoste, Marine
78dbb5f6-c0e3-4cfa-9856-5b39556f04b6
Ruiz, Siul
d79b3b82-7c0d-47cc-9616-11d29e6a41bd
Or, Dani
a0259fc3-35b3-4d5d-9540-867daf06473a
Lacoste, Marine, Ruiz, Siul and Or, Dani
(2018)
Listening to earthworms burrowing and roots growing - acoustic signatures of soil biological activity.
Scientific Reports, 8 (1), [10236].
(doi:10.1038/s41598-018-28582-9).
Abstract
We report observations of acoustic emissions (AE) from growing plant roots and burrowing earthworms in soil, as a noninvasive method for monitoring biophysical processes that modify soil structure. AE emanating from earthworm and plants root activity were linked with time-lapse imaging in glass cells. Acoustic waveguides where installed in soil columns to monitor root growth in real time (mimicking field application). The cumulative AE events were in correlation with earthworm burrow lengths and with root growth. The number of AE events recorded from the soil columns with growing maize roots were several orders of magnitude larger than AE emanating from bare soil under similar conditions. The results suggest that AE monitoring may offer a window into largely unobservable dynamics of soil biomechanical processes such as root growth or patterns of earthworm activity - both important soil structure forming processes.
Text
s41598-018-28582-9
- Version of Record
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Accepted/In Press date: 18 June 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 6 July 2018
Published date: 6 July 2018
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 434365
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/434365
ISSN: 2045-2322
PURE UUID: 30555450-e400-45cf-8950-95c79aae9d94
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Date deposited: 20 Sep 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:07
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Author:
Marine Lacoste
Author:
Dani Or
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