Forecasting tillage and soil warming effects on earthworm populations

Summary

Abstract Healthy soils are crucial for sustainable food production, but tillage limits the biological regulation of essential ecosystem services. Better understanding of the mechanisms driving management effects on soil ecosystem engineers is needed to support sustainable management under environmental change. This paper presents the Energy–Environment–Earthworm ( EEE worm) model, a mechanistic individual‐based model of Lumbricus terrestris populations. Lumbricus terrestris is a dominant earthworm species in undisturbed habitats and is closely associated with numerous ecosystem services such as water flow regulation, soil structure and crop production. In reduced tillage agriculture, a decline in mechanical disturbance allows for L. terrestris proliferation, whilst the activities of L. ter