An AI ‐driven soil extractor for high‐throughput measurement of soil microarthropod taxon densities using live individuals

Soil invertebrates play a key role in ecosystem functioning, yet their monitoring remains constrained by labour‐intensive extraction and taxonomic identification procedures. Consequently, large‐scale and high‐frequency assessments of soil biodiversity remain difficult despite increasing demand for standardized monitoring tools.

Here, we present an AI‐driven soil extractor that combines classical dry extraction with real‐time computer vision and deep‐learning‐based classification of soil microarthropods. Organisms are detected and classified while moving through the device, allowing automated quantification of taxon densities while individuals remain alive and available for subsequent analyses.

System performance was evaluated using a validation framework that separately assessed AI classification accuracy, the integrated detection and transport workflow, and extraction performance relative to conventional Berlese funnels. Automated image classification achieved an overall accuracy of 80.9% (95% CI: 79.9%–81.8%; Cohen's κ = 0.767) when compared with expert image identification. Automated detections and manual identification of the same extracts showed high agreement in community composition, with a median Bray–Curtis similarity of 0.80, indicating limited mechanical bias introduced by specimen transport. Abundance estimates obtained with the automated system closely matched those produced by conventional Berlese extraction, with only minor taxon‐specific differences. Controlled experiments further demonstrated high mechanical reliability, with detection success exceeding 97% and transport success exceeding 92%.

The system provides a scalable approach for quantitative monitoring of soil microarthropod communities while preserving live specimens for downstream analyses. By integrating extraction, image acquisition, classification and specimen collection into a single workflow, the AI‐driven soil extractor offers a practical tool for high‐throughput soil mesofauna monitoring.