The Laboratory of Soil Zoology and General Entomology is one of the oldest laboratories of the Institute. Its core staff currently comprises about forty researchers. The laboratory traditionally works in three major areas: Biodiversity — taxonomy, phylogeny and systematics of soil and epigeic invertebrates, zoogeography and faunistics; Evolutionary morphology and population ecology — evolutionary morphology and physiology of soil invertebrates, animal adaptations to life in the soil, population ecology of invertebrates; Functional ecology and community ecology — functional structure of soil communities, detrital food web structure, animal–microbial relationships, behavior and social structure of soil invertebrates.