Another limitation of soil macrofauna research
has been that funding bodies are concerned with
agricultural land use only and have a three to
five-year life span for projects. This prevents work
being done on native fauna in naturally vegetated
regions or transcending boundaries between agricultural
and naturally vegetated land. The funding
time frame of three to five years also puts
considerable constraints on research outcomes
and actively discourages researchers from establishing
long-term projects/field sites. This type of
disincentive precludes important research which
needs to be over several seasons to be certain of
experimental trends vs. seasonal variation, and
also to be aware of the appropriate spatial and
temporal sampling scales. The results from a year
long study can be misleading or inconclusive,
especially if the year records a below or well
above average rainfall or soil temperature. In
Australia there have been only two studies which
have sampled earthworm populations for more
than 1 year (3 years, Kingston, 1989; Hutchinson
and King, 1980). Often conclusions have been
based on one sampling (Doube et al., 1994),
sometimes with no indication whether soil moisture
conditions were optimal.