Invertebrate animals in Dutch gardens, new research

This video from Australia says about itself:

The living soil (1982)

Without spoken commentary, this film depicts both the life of the soil and the life within it. The parent rock weathers, and soil is born. It cracks under the sun, then rain brings it back to life: seeds germinate, and animals burrow and bustle below and above the soil’s surface. To complete the chemical cycle, fungi, agents of decay, flourish, themselves to decay in turn. Scavenging insects pick a mouse corpse clean, and a new generation of shoots sprouts among the bones.

Photographic techniques reveal actions that our senses cannot otherwise register. Slow-motion anatomizes the impact of a water drop on sand; time-lapse photography eliminates transient details and emphasizes processes, such as the growth of roots and shoots and the removal of soft tissue from a dead animal. These processes, being slow, fail to catch our attention on a brief nature ramble, but they power the mechanism of the living soil. As the film’s introduction states: ”the soil is both the source and the product of the cycle of life and decay”.

The Dutch Ecology Institute recently did research on invertebrate animals in Dutch gardens.

NOS TV reports today (translated):

The results mean that isopods, of which there are 39 species, have a narrow victory over arachnids. The first ones live in 94 percent of the gardens, the second ones in 93 percent. Worms also get a percentage of above 90.

Other land animals that often live in garden soil are slugs and snails (above 80 percent), ants (72 percent) and centipedes (61 percent).

Soil restoration techniques at post mining sites: here.