High mountain meadows mesofauna for pastures rehabilitation

The aims of this work are to study a quantitative parity of dominant soil inhabitants in High-Mountainous pastures of the South Caucasus and to define inhabitants´ roles in decomposition of plants. Species composition, horizontal and vertical distributions, seasonal dynamics were defined in soil layers by standard methods used in soil zoology. A role of soil invertebrate-saprophages was shown in plant litter destruction processes, in enhancement of biological cycle of high mountain ecosystems and in maintenance of soil natural fertility. Furthermore, the work presents a study of trophic structures and estimation of saprophages role in soil biota. The basic groups of high mountain meadows invertebrate-saprohages (millipedes, earthworms, caterpillars) were determined. The results showed that in trophic structures of animals´ population soil saprophages made up 50-80 % and the basic stream of energy was directed through detrital food chains in a soil cycle.