Conceptual overview of burrowing animals as actors of landscape change

Extensive research, ranging from Darwin’s work to more recent studies, has demonstrated the significant role burrowing animals play in sediment movement, change of soil structure and water infiltration. This has led to their recognition as ecosystem engineers and key agents in shaping landscape development. Despite this wide knowledge, their role in the erosion-infiltration balance at the landscape scale, especially related to soil hydrological processes, is still unclear. One way of understanding this soil-hydro-biota connection is the use of landscape evolution models (LEM). Therefore, the aim of this conceptual overview is to present a methodological framework used to develop a “soil-hydro-fauna” module, to be then included in a LEM. We conduct a systematic literature review on equations representative of soil movement and water infiltration processes due to burrowing activity. The results are classified according to animal size and behaviour, the spatio-temporal scale of the process, and climatic zone. Then, we bridge the classified processes related to burrowing activity in a virtual experiment to outline the relation between soil-biota activity and hydrology in different landscapes. Finally, we develop a module based on the virtual experiment that can be used to investigate the impact of burrowing animals on soil movement and water infiltration at the landscape scale. Data acquired from rainfall simulation experiments on soils disturbed by burrowing activity, sediment fences and luminescence dating are used to improve, calibrate, and validate the module. With this, we hope to get a better understanding of the impact of burrowing activity on landscapes across scales.