Introduction
　Materials and method
Results
　Earthworm abundance and diversity
　X-ray diffraction

『Discussion
　Despite a carefully replicated and controlled experiment, no effect of earthworms on mineral weathering was observed. The main reason for this was that there was no significant difference in earthworm numbers between the four disturbed treatments and therefore no earthworm-free treatments. The RDA analyses shows that the digging up of the soil and replacing it had an equally negative impact on the earthworms in all of the disturbed treatments. It is possible that during the early stages of the experiment, there were indeed earthworm-free treatments and that colonization of the earthworm-free plots occurred over the course of the experiment. The fact that the earthworm communities in the four disturbed treatments are dominated by juvenile earthworms and are significantly different from the undisturbed control indicates that this may well be true, but without earthworm data from each sampling time it is impossible to be sure. It was not possible to obtain this data without disturbing the soils. The broadening of gabbro peaks over the course of the experiment indicates that the gabbro was becoming more amorphous with time. However, this process was independent of earthworms as it occurred in all treatments and suggests that 24 months is sufficient time for some natural weathering of gabbroic minerals to occur.』

Acknowledgement
References