Native forest conversion alters soil macroinvertebrate diversity and soil quality in tropical mountain landscapes of northern Ecuador

Abstract

Land use changes cause soil degradation and loss of biodiversity, thereby affecting ecological processes and soil-associated ecosystem services. However, land use change impacts on soil health have received little attention in the highland landscapes of the tropics. In this research, using the soil health framework, we assessed the impact of native forest conversion to anthropic systems (planted forests, pastures, and monocultures) on two ecosystem services: biodiversity conservation and soil fertility in the highlands of northern Ecuador. The biological dimension of our assessment focused on the diversity, abundance, and biomass of soil macroinvertebrate communities as proxies to soil functions, whereas soil chemical parameters were used to describe the soil fertility. The soil invertebrate communities and soil chemical parameters were studied in topsoil samples using 25 × 25 × 10 cm monoliths, obtained from 10 sampling sites randomly selected in each land use category. We hypothesized that native forests would present more diverse and even soil macroinvertebrate communities, and together with their soil chemical properties would indicate better soil quality than anthropic environments. Our results showed that the structure and composition of the edaphic macroinvertebrate communities significantly differed among the studied land use categories. As predicted, native forests presented greater values for richness, evenness and diversity of soil biota than did the other categories, demonstrating a significant loss of taxonomic biodiversity at order and genus levels. We also found a significant reduction of trophic diversity in native forests converted to anthropic environments. More trophic groups with greater abundances were found in native forests, where predators and detritivores stood out as dominant groups, indicating the good quality of the soil. The results from the soil chemical parameters also confirmed the distinction in soil health between native forests and anthropic environments. Our results highlight the risk associated with current trends of native forest loss and conversion to anthropic systems in high mountain ecosystems in the tropics, illustrating how these alterations could cause biodiversity loss and degradation of the chemical attributes of soil health. The findings of this research could contribute to the conservation and sustainable management of mountain agricultural landscapes in the study region.

Sounds of the underground reflect soil biodiversity dynamics across a grassy woodland restoration chronosequence

“…Although there are inconsistent global trends for the effect of restoration plantings on soil invertebrate abundance and species richness compared to control, reference ecosystems (Parkhurst et al 2021), our results are supported by studies that show higher soil invertebrate abundance in ecosystems with lower anthropogenic disturbance (Smith et al 2008;Nkem et al 2020). Guarderas et al (2022) also found that native forests exhibited greater soil invertebrate richness, evenness, and diversity than other anthropogenically altered landscapes. Moreover, our previous study (Robinson et al 2023) showed that invertebrate abundance (but not richness) was significantly higher in restored plots compared to cleared plots.…”

The Diversity and Abundance of Soil Macrofauna under Different Agroforestry Practices in the Drylands of Southern Ethiopia

“…The composition of the SMF community is comparable with the research ndings of(Bufebo et al, 2021) who identi ed 10 orders from Shenkola, southern Ethiopia, 13 orders from Brazil (da Silva Moço et al, 2009), and 16 orders from Kenya(Karanja et al, 2009). Nevertheless, it is low as compared to the ndings conducted in southern Ecuador, where 42 families of SMF communities were identi ed (GuarderasValverde et al, 2022). SMF distribution and composition are known to vary depending on residue inputs like litter, dead roots and the degree of soil management practices(Mutema et al, 2013, Manhães et al, 2013.…”