Soil Ecology

This practical course is a one-week block course in summer. The goal of the course it to provide students with theoretical background knowledge and hands-on experience on working with soil ecology. First, students get an introduction to soil biodiversity and soil ecology under global change. Afterwards, we take students on a field excursion day where they learn how to assess and sample soil-fauna communities (mesofauna, macrofauna, earthworms) in local habitats. Animals are sampled with adequate sampling techniques, such as litter sieving, hand sorting, soil coring and mustard extraction. Subsequently, all animals are extracted, and afterwards identified to the highest resolution possible. Finally, different habitats are compared based on their soil-fauna communities and the results are contextualized among the existing literature.

For 2023-2025, we compared soil-fauna communities in adjacent broadleaf and coniferous forest stands in a forest close to Würzburg. Previous students liked the forest experience, the hands-on mentality, and the friendly work atmosphere during this course.