Abstract
Although the potential of vermiremediation for restoring metal-contaminated soils is promising, the effects of earthworms on the availability of soil metals are still debatable. Most previous studies considered the soil as a “whole black box.” Mobilization or immobilization of metals are affected by earthworm activities within drilosphere hotspots under different soil conditions, which has not been specifically studied. Therefore, an improved 2D terrarium was designed to study the impact of earthworm activities on cadmium (Cd) fate in the drilosphere hotspots (burrow wall soils, burrow casts, and surface casts) of different artificially spiked Cd treatments (CK: 0 mg kg-1; LM: 1 mg kg-1; and HM: 5 mg kg-1) with different organic amendments (2% and 10%). The results revealed that Cd increased earthworm activities with the highest cast production in HM and the highest burrow length in LM. Earthworms exhibited a stronger tendency to reduce total Cd concentration by 4.48–13.58% in casts of LM soils, while 3.37–5.22% in burrow walls under HM treatments. Overall, earthworms could increase the availability of Cd in casts under all conditions (55.46–121.01%). The organic amendments decreased the total Cd concentration and increased the availability of Cd in the disturbed soil. A higher amount of organic amendment significantly decreased total Cd concentration of the drilosphere by 1.16–5.83% in LM and HM treatments, while increasing DTPA-Cd concentrations in all components by 23.13–55.20 %, 14.63–35.11%, and 3.30–11.41% in CK, LM, and HM treatments, respectively, except for earthworm non-disturbed soil and no-earthworm soil in HM treatments. Redundancy analysis (RDA) revealed that the moisture, pH, and total carbon contents in soil are the main factors affecting Cd bioavailability. In this study, we decoded the “black box” of soil by making it relatively simple to better understand the effects and mechanisms of earthworm activities on soil metal availability and consequently provided comprehensive insights for using earthworms in soil vermiremediation.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Y. G., Z. S., and W. Z. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Y. G., and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. Supervision, project administration, funding acquisition, and writing, review, and editing were performed by Y. Q. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Highlights
• The 2D terraria were used to sample different components of the drilosphere.
• Earthworms redistributed Cd in soil through their habit activities.
• Cd bioavailability in casts was higher than that of other drilosphere components.
• Higher organic amendment increased Cd bioavailability of the drilosphere hotspot.
• Soil Cd availability was influenced by moisture, pH, and total Cd and carbon contents of soil.
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Ge, Y., Huang, C., Zhou, W. et al. Eisenia fetida impact on cadmium availability and distribution in specific components of the earthworm drilosphere. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 112222–112235 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30335-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30335-9