Summary Earthworm-seed interactions are increasingly recognized as ecologically important. Efforts to study these interactions make use of either no-choice or choice feeding trials due to logistical constraints or differing objectives, however, evidence is lacking regarding the consistency of feeding preferences by earthworms between these scenarios. We conducted a small-scale study in which we compared ingestion and egestion of eleven seed species by the anecic earthworm Lumbricus terrestris L. between no-choice and choice feeding dish trials. We found that seed ingestion and egestion differed between species and the seed ingestion preferences were relatively consistent (Pearson Correlation, r = 0.695) between the feeding trials. These results indicate that seeds preferred in isolation are similarly detectable and preferred alongside other options, aiding in the interpretation of results of other anecic earthworm-seed feeding experiments and suggesting that L. terrestris has a surprisingly strong ability to discriminate between and selectively consume specific seeds from a larger and diverse pool of species options.

中文翻译：

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蚯蚓（Lumbricus terrestris）在无选择和选择喂养实验之间一致的种子摄入偏好

总结 蚯蚓-种子相互作用越来越被认为具有生态重要性。由于后勤限制或不同的目标，研究这些相互作用的努力使用了无选择或选择喂养试验，但是，缺乏关于这些情景之间蚯蚓喂养偏好一致性的证据。我们进行了一项小规模研究，在该研究中，我们比较了无选择和选择喂养盘试验之间厌食蚯蚓 Lumbricus terrestris L. 对 11 种种子的摄取和消化。我们发现种子摄取和摄取在物种之间不同，并且种子摄取偏好在喂养试验之间相对一致（Pearson Correlation，r = 0.695）。