Responses of soil macro-fauna to land desertification in sandy grassland

Abstract

Changes in soil macro鄄fauna community structure, as a major aspect of biological processes of desertification, are very important for us to understand the laws of biological degradation in sandy grassland and to take proper policy to desertification control. Meantime, it is very important for the restoration of soil faunal diversity in desertification, which further beneficial for the fixation of mobile sand land and desertification control. A survey of soil macro鄄faunal community was conducted by hand sorting in five habitats which represented various desertification stages, such as mobile sand land, semi鄄mobile sand land, semi鄄fixed sand land, fixed sand land and inter鄄dune land. The relation of soil faunal diversity and biomass to desertification was analyzed to assess the influences of desertification development on biological processes in Horqin Sand Land. According to the classification of soil macro鄄fauna, there were 36 faunal groups which belonged to 32 families and 8 orders. The dominant group was Formicidae with 22 common groups accounting for 93. 33% of the total, and with 13 rare groups accounting for 6. 67% of the total. It was shown that there was a significantly lower abundance, group richness and diversity of soil macro鄄faunal community in mobile sand land than in other four habitats (P<0. 05) , while no significant differences (P>0. 05) were found in soil faunal abundance, group richness and diversity between semi鄄mobile