Soil quality decrease over 13 years of agricultural production

Soil biotic and abiotic characteristics as driven factors for site quality of Araucaria angustifolia plantations

“…These authors also report that litter palatability may attract a high diversity of soil fauna functional groups (e.g., ecosystem engineers, and decomposers), which in turn may fuel higher trophic levels (e.g., bacterivores, fungivores, omnivores, and predators). These results agree with previous works (Beretta-Blanco et al 2019;Gebremikael et al 2016;Mauda et al 2018;Mishra et al 2019) that reported high litter deposition and rhizodeposition as the main factors increasing nutrient availability, microbial activity, and abundance of higher tropic levels as observed in the high-productivity site. By changing these two processes in the rhizosphere of A. angustifolia, a quality site may be improved over the years, generating high productivity levels because of increased release of plantavailable nutrients (total N, and P sbe ).…”

Agricultural Transformations in the Southern Cone of Latin America: Agricultural Intensification and Decrease of the Aboveground Net Primary Production, Uruguay’s Case

“…Expansion implies an advance on grasslands, hence modifying the system, since it removes the natural tapestry. The consequences of this transformation are linked to various processes, such as loss of the ability to retain carbon in soils [38], degradation [58], and loss of biodiversity associated with the Pampa biome [59]. In addition, there are changes in the "productive profile" of these soils linked to traditional livestock use, which is replaced by agriculture and new social stakeholders [60].…”

“…The agricultural intensification process in Uruguay has created a link between agricultural production and soil deterioration processes, which decreases the potential for agricultural production. In particular, physical processes of soil erosion are identified as well as, mainly, the decrease of the organic carbon content in soils [28,[38][39][40][41].…”

Land-Use Intensification Trends in the Rio De La Plata Region of South America: Toward Specialization or Recoupling Crop and Livestock Production

“…The implementation of this policy was articulated with the agricultural sector and covered more than 95% of the cropping area. It was useful to promote ICLS, reduce soil erosion and mitigate other externalities and environmental impacts associated with runoff [13,15,16] . This policy is consistent with the sustainable soil management application guidelines proposed by FAO and the Global Soil Partnership and with the UN sustainable development goals 2 and 15 [16] .…”

“…The initial increase in cropping area in Uruguay (mainly driven by the economic benefit of soybean production between 2003 and 2015) was based on rotation intensification (double cropping and conversion of pastures to no-till cropping in integrated crop-livestock systems; ICLS) and expansion into new areas [11] . However, the drop in international grain prices, in addition to soil degradation in poorly designed rotation systems [12][13][14][15] and soil use and management regulations [16] , stabilized the cropping area and favored ICLS expansion over the last five years. For example, the area under soybean cultivation decreased by 30% between 2013/2014 and 2019/2020 while the area of cultivated pastures increased [9] .…”