Manual on Colletion, Preservation and Identification of Soil Fauna

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Soil is the home to over a quarter of all living species on Earth. A healthy soil depends on a vibrant range of life forms living below the ground, from bacteria and fungi to tiny insects, earthworms and slightly larger amphibians, reptiles and mammals. Together, this rich biodiversity brings immeasurable benefits to life on Earth. It plays a vital role in mitigating climate change, storing and purifying water, providing antibiotics and preventing erosion the well-being of all plants and land-based animals depends on the complex processes that take place in soil.

The biological diversity within soil may be in the orders of magnitude greater than that above the surface, but it remains under explored A major scientific challenge is to evaluate the significance of the great diversity of life in soils and sediments for ecosystem functioning and ecosystem goods and services. Across all domains, land use change affects soil biodiversity through habitat loss.

India is the seventh-largest country in the world, with a total area of 3.287,263 square kilometers. India measures 3.214 km from north to south and 2.933 km from east to west. It has a land frontier of 15,200 km and a coastline of 7,516.6 km with a variety of muddy, sandy and salty soils, which harbours an array of or organisms below as well as above the landmass So far a total of 22586 species of fauna have been documented from soil ecosystem of India.

Considering the ecological and environmental significance of soil fauna, the Zoological Survey of India is actively engaged to document its diversity in various ecosystems of the country and to promote the taxonomical research on lesser known soil representatives On this line a book entitled, Manual on Collection, Preservation and Identification of Soil Fauna brought out by ZSI to disseminate the information on the collection, preservation and identification of 31 faunal groups comprised of micro-, meso- macro- and mega fauna in 27 chapters contributed by the Scientists of the ZSI.

**Contents and Sample Pages**