Abundance and diversity of soil mesofauna under tillage system in maize plantation at Ultisols soil

Abstract

Intensification land use with the conventional tillage can bring effects in the soil biodiversity. One of important organisms in soil is soil mesofauna that has an important role in decomposition of organic matter. This research aimed to study the effect of minimum tillage and full tillage on the abundance and diversity of soil meso fauna. The treatments were consisted of soil tillage (minimum tillage and full tillage) and herbicide (with and without herbicide Glifosat 2,4-D) with four replications. The location of this research have soil organic-C and total-N classified in the low criteria. The results show that the application of minimum tillage to prepare maize plantation reached significantly lowest abundance of soil mesofauna compared to full tillage in vegetative phase of maize sampling, however it was not significantly different between minimum tillage and full tillage if it combined with herbicide. Diversity index in full tillage were significantly higher that that in minimum tillage, on the contrary, the dominance index of soil mesofauna were not significantly different between tillage system. On the generative phase, there were no differences on the abundances of soil mesofauna between tillage sistem. There were three dominant mesofauna orders, namely Acarina, Collembola, and Diplopod.