03560naa a2200133 a 450000100080000000500110000800800410001910000160006024500810007626000090015752029260016670000130309277303210310513148812008-09-19       2008    bl uuuu     u00u1 u    #d1 aHASSALL, M.  aEffects of climate change on faunal stimulation of CO2 emissions from soils.  c2008  aTen times as much CO2 is currently emitted from the world?s soils as from all anthropogenic sources combined. It follows that a 1% change in CO2 output from soils would have a greater effect on atmospheric concentrations than the all the changes proposed in the Kyoto protocol combined together. The potential for positive feedback resulting from increased microbial metabolism in the soil resulting from climate change is very high but changes in soil metabolism are also the least well understood part of how the whole global C cycle will respond to the effects of climate change. What is known, as a result of decades of Soil Zoology, is that microbial activity is strongly regulated by soil animals (Hassall et al. 2006), partly because of the ?Sleeping Beauty paradox? (Lavelle et al 1995). If the faunal regulators are affected differently to the microbes by climate change then predictions from current models of the global carbon cycle are likely to be erroneous. The life cycles, metabolic pathways, ecology and physiology of animals are so different to those of microbes they are very unlikely to respond in the same way, particularly to future changes in precipitation, which in many regions is predicted to involve both changes in both intensity and periodicity. Soil animals will respond to these changes by alterations in the trade-off between times spent feeding and sheltering, the degree to which they aggregate, their life histories and population processes. Particularly good arthropod macro-decomposers for investigating these responses are the terrestrial isopods for which all of these attributes have been thoroughly studied under current climate conditions. In this paper we report results of testing the hypotheses that a) intensity and b) periodicity of rainfall and c) differences in relative humidity will affect feeding, sheltering and aggregating behaviour, life history traits, growth and survivorship rates of terrestrial isopods. We further hypothesise that different species will respond differently to experimental simulations of climate change due to macro-evolutionary differences between species, particularly their different physiological, morphological and behavioural adaptations to desiccation stress.. We go on to test the hypothesis that different ecotypes of one species, from different parts of its geographical range with different regional climates, will respond differently to alterations in patterns of precipitation. Results from this experiment will help to answer the question of whether organisms are likely to respond differently to climate change in different parts of their range as a result of micro-evolutionary adaptations to different local climates Finally we report on how responses of this group of soil animals to experimentally manipulated micro-climates affect the extent to which they stimulate microbial metabolism, and subsequently soil CO2 emissions.1 aWARD, N.  tIn: INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON SOIL ZOOLOGY, 15; INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON APTERYGOTA, 12., 2008, Curitiba. Biodiversity, conservation and sustainabele management of soil animal: abstracts. Colombo: Embrapa Florestas. Editors: George Gardner Brown; Klaus Dieter Sautter; Renato Marques; Amarildo Pasini. 1 CD-ROM.