Temporal monitoring of earthworm communities at the DIAMS experimental site

Study site The study took place in the commune of Mauguio near Montpellier (34), which has a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers. The average annual temperature in Mauguio is 14.8°C and the average annual rainfall is 607 mm (Climatik, INRAE). The DIAMs (Dispositif Instrumenté en Agroforesterie Méditerranéenne sous contrainte hydrique) experimental site was set up in 2017 on an INRAE experimental station Diascope. It consists of three land uses: - crops: cereals or legumes ; - agroforestry: linear lines of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia, Linnaeus 1753) planted in 2017 and 2018, separating alleys cultivated with cereals or legumes similar to those in the crop plots; - black locust (R. pseudoacacia) tree plantation. Farming practices are considered to be conventional but low-input, and are identical in the cultivated areas of the agroforestry plots and the field crop plots, both in terms of tillage and inputs (fertilisation, crop protection). In the forest plots herbaceous plants grew spontaneously following the initial sowing of an alfalfa cover in 2015.