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We expected seedling growth to be higher in more fertilesamples, i.e., casts that were more nutrient-rich (see Clause et al.,2014). Casts and soil modified by earthworms are known to have ahigher content of mineral nutrients than soil with no earthwormsand to support greater plant growth (Eisenhauer and Scheu, 2008;Laossi et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2010). Our results showed thatseedlings grew better in the controls, independently from the soiltype. Surprisingly, seedlings in casts of L. terrestris did not growbetter than in the other samples despite their overall initial highernutrient-content. Seedlings of U. dioica grew better than any otherspecies. Poorter and Remkes (1990) also observed a higher relativegrowth rate of U. dioica compared to O. vulgare, T. repens andFestuca sp., which is common in plants that colonize fertilesecondary successional disturbed sites (Poorter and Remkes,1990). Also, as for patterns of seed germination, we believe thatmicrobiological properties of casts are responsible for theseunexpected patterns.
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