Abstract
Fossorial (burrowing) animals have a substantial impact on landforms and landform processes in both a direct and indirect manner. Perhaps the first notable research on fossorial animals in zoogeomorphology can be attributed to Charles Darwin's study of earthworms and their impact on soil characteristics. In this article, we examine a sample of animals and provide an overview of their impacts. The outline of this review categorizes animals based on their taxonomic order and includes: Haplotaxida, Isoptera, and Hymenoptera, Salmoniformes, Testudines, Procellariiformes, Lagomorphs, Rodentia, Carnivora, and Soricomorpha. Several examples of direct soil displacement via burrowing and denning are provided and discussed. A majority of the zoogeomorphic research on fossorial animals has focused on impacts such as soil erosion, slope failure or mass wasting events, and biogeochemical alteration of soil. The transition from quantifiable studies of animal geomorphology to the secondary impacts on ecosystems is a logical advance of the study of zoogeomorphology; however, before doing so, additional quantitative data on direct geomorphic impact is required.
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