Mesofauna

What Is Mesofauna?

The soil mesofauna are intermediate sized animals that live in the soil (insert citation). These animals are more than 40 microns in length. The organisms that make up the soil mesofauna are nematodes, mites, springtails, proturans, and pauropods (insert citation).

Mesofauna Diet

The soil mesofuana have a wide variety of diets. Although most eat decaying plant material, they also eat microorganisms, soil animals, decaying animal material, living plants, and fungi (insert brit citation).

There are three types of feeders in the mesofauna: micropredators, litter ingestors, and ecosystem engineers (online lib Citation).

Micropredators eat microbial biomass while also controlling the microbial population. In this process, The micropredators release nutrients into the soil from the microbial biomass that they eat (insert online lib citation).

Litter ingestors eat leaf litter that have fallen off of the trees and shrubbery. These mesofauna modify the chemical composition as well as the physical structure of the soil (Insert online lib citation).

Ecosystem engineers burrow and ingest the soil they live in and modify the overall soil structure (Insert online lib citation). This includes mesofauna such as earthworms.

Mesofauna Effect On Soil

The soil mesofauna eat roots in the soil and open drainage and aeration channels (Insert online lib citation). These channels contain fecal material that can be broken down and ingested by smaller organisms.