Mitigation of earthworm behavior against lithium pollution using biochar

Application of lithium has been increased in recent years due to its use in various modern gazettes and forced to find new reserves and extraction through mining. The mining process and improper disposal of lithium containing gazettes significantly added this element to the surrounding areas, especially to the terrestrial and soil ecosystems. The increasing concentration of lithium affected the soil biodiversity and altered behavior was expected for macro-organisms. Present study aimed to investigate the different concentrations of lithium salt (Li₂CO₃) on the behavior of the species of earthworm (Eisenia fetida), according to ISO 17512-1:2008 standards. In recent years, researches on biochars are drastically increased due to its unique role in soil health improvement. Thus, the biochar has been included in this work as a conditioning material to study the mitigation effects of lithium on earthworm (E. fetida) behaviour. The findings suggested that lithium promoted the earthworm avoidance on dose dependent manner while 1% (w/w) addition of biochar in soil mitigated the avoidance behaviour. These mitigating effects were corelated to certain soil physio-chemical properties change, better soil's buffering capacity against stress by lithium in presence of biochar. The findings of present study may force new investigation to restore the soil health and earthworm behaviour near the mining areas.