The extreme sensitivity of macrofauna to soil conditions
makes them potential indicators of soil disturbances .
Most approaches to the exploitation of these indicators have
focussed on single speciesor on communities of single
taxa; earthworms, Collembola and Nematoda have been the
most commonly used groups in that respect . These
organisms, however, are part of terrestrial communities that
comprise several tens of strongly interacting species. It
seems therefore more logical to consider whole macrofauna
communities as indicators since they may possess a wider
range of adaptive strategies than a single taxonomic group
. This approach has been tested at a polluted site where
a sharp gradient in zinc concentration allowed us to evaluate
the effect of heavy metal pollution on the edaphic community