Soil Communities: Who Responds and How Quickly to a Change in Agricultural System?

Abstract

The use of conservation and sustainable practices could restore the abundance and richness of soil organisms in agroecosystems. Fitting in this context, this study aimed to highlight whether and how different soil living communities reacted to the conversion from an integrated to an organic orchard. The metataxonomic approach for fungi and bacteria and the determination of biological forms of diatoms and microarthropods were applied. Soil analyses were carried out in order to evaluate the effect of soil chemical features on four major soil living communities. Our results showed that the different taxa reacted with different speeds to the management changes. Fungi responded quickly to the changes, suggesting that modification in agricultural practices had a greater impact on fungal communities. Bacteria and microarthropods were more affected by abiotic parameters and less by the management. The diatom composition seemed to be affected by seasonality but the highest H’ (Shannon index) value was measured in the organic system. Fungi, but also diatoms, seemed to be promising for monitoring changes in the soil since they were sensitive to both the soil features and the anthropic impact. Our study showed that soil biodiversity could be affected by the conversion to sustainable management practices from the early years of an orchard onwards. Therefore, better ecological orchard management may strengthen soil sustainability and resilience in historically agricultural regions.

Land Use, Microorganisms, and Soil Organic Carbon: Putting the Pieces Together

“…In previous studies, plantation land had higher intrinsic growth rates and heavier disturbances to soil microorganisms [88,89]. Soil fungal communities could more rapidly respond to the changes [90] and to plantation land, because they are more resilient in the disturbances; thus, fungal diversity increases in these situations [91,92]. Soil bacterial community could increase in undisturbed conditions [43,93,94].…”

Non-Lethal Assessment of Land Use Change Effects in Water and Soil of Algerian Riparian Areas along the Medjerda River through the Biosentinel Bufo spinosus Daudin

“…Consequently, the evaluation of ecosystem health can be reflected by the organisms inhabiting it [3]. Different biomonitors are reported in the scientific literature, in detail: earthworms, arthropods, and land snails for soil [4][5][6][7]; fish or aquatic macroinvertebrates for water [8,9]; lichens and moss for air [3,10,11]; and also microorganisms and vascular plants (i.e., bacteria, fungi, herbs, and trees) [12][13][14][15][16].…”