Molecular mechanisms of pesticide tolerance of Aporrectodea caliginosa

This project is part of the need to understand and predict in natura the sublethal effects and evolutionary consequences of pesticides used in agriculture on soil biodiversity. The main question is whether the soil fauna (earthworms) is able to cope with the widespread residual contamination in agricultural landscapes. The following hypothesis has been examined: Populations of A. caliginosa earthworms derived from conventional managed field have developed a tolerance to pesticides compared to those from organic managed field. To characterize without a priori the molecular mechanisms of tolerance, state of the art omics technology (RNA sequencing) and bioinformatics were applied. Overall, our study sheds new light into molecular mechanisms of tolerance to chemical pollution in soil terrestrial invertebrates and contributes to clarify how species are able to cope with pesticide contamination in agrosystems.