The potential of earthworms to restore ecosystem services after opencast mining - A review

Opencast coal mining has several environmental impacts, which require land rehabilitation when mining operations are finished. For that reason, restoration after such extractive industries' work is common and has been well studied. However, many ecological restoration schemes do not examine to what extent complete and functioning ecosystems have been restored above and below ground. While the aim should be to restore functioning ecosystems, most restoration plans focus only on vegetation and above ground macro-fauna. Among the potential species that are likely to be important early in mine land restoration, earthworms are particularly good candidates. They provide several ecosystem services that are likely to accelerate soil restoration, improve primary production and facilitate the restoration of a functional ecosystem in mining areas. These services include the following: increase in topsoil fertility, food for a wide range of predators and recycling of waste organic materials on rehabilitated areas. Here, we outline some of the challenges specifically facing opencast mining restoration and describe how the ecosystem services provided by earthworms may address some of these challenges. (C) 2010 Gesellschaft fur Okologie. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.