In the context of climate change the prediction of the reaction of soil organisms on drought events is of major importance, since many soil organisms fulfill important ecosystem services in agricultural soil systems. Our Project SoilClim takes place in four European countries (Sweden, Spain, Switzerland and Germany), in which we installed shelters that excluded a distinct proportion of the rain for several months to simulate a time period with reduced rainfall. In this framework of the SoilClim project I currently investigate the influence of reduced rainfall on the feeding spectrum of soil dwelling predators in winter-wheat fields as my Master’s thesis. Therefore, I am especially interested in Gamasid-mites and Diptera-larvae since they rank among the most common soil dwelling predators in arable fields.
Further information can be found here.