Abstract
Soil health connotes the balance of biological, physicochemical, nutritional, structural, and water-holding components necessary to sustain plant productivity. Despite a substantial knowledge base, achieving sustainable soil health remains a goal because it is difficult to simultaneously: (i) improve soil structure, physicochemistry, water-holding capacity, and nutrient cycling; (ii) suppress pests and diseases while increasing beneficial organisms; and (iii) improve biological functioning leading to improved biomass/crop yield. The objectives of this review are (a) to identify agricultural practices (APs) driving soil health degradations and barriers to developing sustainable soil health, and (b) to describe how the nematode community analyses-based soil food web (SFW) and fertilizer use efficiency (FUE) data visualization models can be used towards developing sustainable soil health. The SFW model considers changes in beneficial nematode population dynamics relative to food and reproduction (enrichment index, EI; y-axis) and resistance to disturbance (structure index, SI; x-axis) in order to identify best-to-worst case scenarios for nutrient cycling and agroecosystem suitability of AP-driven outcomes. The FUE model visualizes associations between beneficial and plant-parasitic nematodes (x-axis) and ecosystem services (e.g., yield or nutrients, y-axis). The x-y relationship identifies best-to-worst case scenarios of the outcomes for sustainability. Both models can serve as platforms towards developing integrated and sustainable soil health management strategies on a location-specific or a one-size-fits-all basis. Future improvements for increased implementation of these models are discussed.
Highlights
The fertilizer use efficiency (FUE) model uses beneficial and harmful nematodes to identify if the outcomes meet the definition of sustainable soil health
A combination of the soil food web (SFW) and FUE model analyses can be used to understand the process-limiting factors and gaps in decision-making tools (Figure 2) and align ecosystem services needed for sustainable soil health management in cropping systems
The FUE model is based on assessing the relationship between changes in numerical abundance of nematodes quantified at trophic group levels and ecosystem services
Summary
Healthy soils are the foundation for meeting the increasing world population’s needs for food, fiber, nutrition, and healthy environment on a limited landmass further confounded by climate change grand challenge that requires multi-dimensional solutions [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Developing a sustainable soil health for both agricultural (annual to perennial; row and non-row crops) and managed natural (forests, grasslands, rangelands) production systems is central to meeting both food demands and to reducing environmental damage [3,5,6,10,13,14,15] In this context, we define sustainable soil health as one that simultaneously generates three sets of desirable ecosystem services [9,12,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25] while meeting environmental and economic expectations [5,26,27,28,29,30]. This review highlights how these two models can serve as a platform towards developing integrated and sustainable soil health management strategies on a location-specific or a one-size-fits-all basis
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