Relation to Soil Animal Populations and Plant Litter Decomposition in a Tropical Region

Abstract

The study was aimed to evaluate effect of soil animals (soil mesofauna and earthworm) on the decomposition of plant litters at different land use areas in Gunung Batin, Lampung Province, South Sumatra, Indonesia. The plant litters were taken from several land use areas, i.e. bushes, cassava, rubber, and cacao plantation lands at Gunung Batin. The decomposition of plant litters were studied by taking soil cores of 100 ml for mesofauna and square box 25 cm ×25 cm for earthworm. The results showed that the number of soil mesofauna were higher in bushes than in other land uses, while the earthworm was in the cacao area. The rate of plant litter decomposition was the highest in the cacao plantation land, and had a correlation to the number of earthworm. Therefore, in the cacao plantation land, earthworm caused decreasing of C/N ratio.