Characteristics of soil macrofauna community and CCA analysis between soil macrofauna and soil properties in the wetlands of the Lhasa River basin

Abstract

The aims of this study were to analyze the composition and diversity characteristics of soil macrofauna community and the response of soil macrofauna to soil properties in an alpine river wetland of the Lhasa River basin. Soil macrofauna were investigated in nine wetland habitats of the Lhasa River basin in September 2009 and 2010. The diversity characteristics of the soil macrofauna community were evaluated by the diversity indexes and One-way ANOVA. Soil macrofauna communities comprised at least 33 taxa and were dominated by Lumbricidae and Valloniidae. The diversity and evenness indexes of soil macrofauna community were in the ranges of 0.55–2.07 and 0.22–0.73, respectively. Soil macrofauna diversity was the highest in the Potentilla anseriana and Kobresia pygmaea habitats; followed by the Lancea tibetica and P. anseriana habitats; and the lowest diversities were found in the Caragana spinifera and K. pygmaea habitats. The non-metric multi-dimensional scaling analysis (MDS) showed that these nine soil macrofauna communities could be divided into three groups. The community structure dissimilarities between groups and similarities within a given group were significant. Canonical correspondence analysis indicated that soil organic matter, soil moisture content and pH were the main factors affecting the composition and diversity of soil macrofauna communities of the river wetlands on the Qinghai–Tibet plateau.