Resilience of a tropical of earthwormOctochaetona surensis (Michaelsen) to paper milleffluent

Abstract

Industrial practices are accountable for the discharge of inadequately processed wastewater to the terrestrialenvironment during its flow to the aquatic destination that threatens all types of terrestrial lives of which earthworm is animportant member. Earthworms are considered as ecosystem engineers and contribute to soil fertility, development, andmaintenance of soil Physico-chemical properties. In this study, earthworms were exposed to soils with different concentrations(0,25, 50, 100) in % of papermill effluent for 30 days to investigate the response of earthworms to it. It was observed that thebody weight was significantly retarded whereas the rate of respiration, ammonia excretion significantly increased with an increasein the concentration of effluent in soil indicating higher metabolic maintenance in the prevailing stress conditions.