Coffee Agroforestry Systems Favor Soil Macrofauna Abundance and Composition and Reduce Seasonal Influences

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

ABSTRACT Although several studies have already been conducted to assess the soil macrofauna community in agroforestry systems (AFS), there are still few studies which have evaluated coffee AFS. This study sought to answer the following questions: how does the soil macrofauna community respond to heterogeneous coffee growing systems? and does the effect of seasonality on the edaphic macrofauna differ between systems? We evaluated three production systems: grevílea with coffee AFS GCAFS); banana with coffee AFS (BCAFS); and coffee monoculture (CM) and a native forest. Soil macrofauna was sampled by the soil monolith method in two seasons. The CM showed less expressive total richness results in the two seasons, and of Shannon’s Diversity Index and average richness in the rainy season. There was a general reduction in the total richness and in the diversity indices from the rainy to the dry season. The similarity analysis showed clustering of heterogeneous systems (p = .3126). The multidimensional scaling analysis illustrated a gradient from the highest diversity system to the lowest diversity system. AFS are favorable for the establishment, richness and diversity of macrofauna. There is less seasonal variability in the macrofauna communities in the AFS, suggesting greater resilience to seasonal and climate fluctuations.