Species Richness, Community Organization, and Spatiotemporal Distribution of Earthworms in the Pineapple Agroecosystems of Tripura, India

Table 4

Comparison of soil physicochemical and earthworm community parameters among different age group of pineapple plantations of Tripura.

Parameters	1–5 years	15–20 years	30–35 years
Soil texture	Loamy sand	Loam	Sandy loam
Canopy cover	Absent	Minimum	Scattered
Temperature (°C)	26.62 ± 0.07	26.14 ± 0.07	25.83 ± 0.07
Moisture (%)	16.61 ± 0.29	18.84 ± 0.43	20.09 ± 0.35
pH	5.02 ± 0.04	4.81 ± 0.33	4.63 ± 0.04
Organic matter (%)	1.36 ± 0.02	1.93 ± 0.08	2.38 ± 0.06
Total species richness	07	07	11
Min. richness sample^−1	1	1	1
Max. richness sample^−1	3	4	5
Mean richness sample^−1	1.78 ± 0.08	1.90 ± 0.06	2.21 ± 0.06
Species name	D. assamensis	D. assamensis	D. assamensis
	D. papillifer papillifer	D. papillifer papillifer	D. papillifer papillifer
	E. gigas	E. gigas	E. gigas
	M. houlleti	M. houlleti	M. houlleti
	P. corethrurus	P. corethrurus	P. corethrurus
	M. posthuma	Kanchuria sp.	Kanchuria sp.
	E. gammiei	Eutyphoeus sp.	Eutyphoeus sp.
	—	—	E. scutarius
	—	—	E. comillahnus
	—	—	K. sumerianus
	—	—	D. nepalensis
Average biomass (gm^−2)	15.04 ± 1.83	23.78 ± 2.06	41.92 ± 0.67
Average density (ind·m^−2)	53.73 ± 2.57	77.20 ± 2.89	158.67 ± 8.17

Values represent mean ± standard error (SE); dissimilar letters indicate significant difference at 5% level of significance.