Factors Influencing Soil Ecosystem and Agricultural Productivity at Higher Altitudes

Abstract

Healthy soil ecosystem is a prerequisite for better agricultural productivity, which is governed by various local abiotic and biotic factors. Agricultural system at higher altitudes has unique characteristics and is entirely distinct from that at the lower altitude. The abiotic and biotic factors are the drivers of the soil ecosystem processes and functioning which improve plant growth and development, ultimately productivity. The key abiotic factors at higher altitudes consist of temperature, precipitation/rainfall pattern, wind profile, light intensity and duration, physiographic, etc.; and the key biotic factors are soil fauna and flora (microbes, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, etc.) influencing the soil ecosystem and agricultural productivity. These major biotic and abiotic factors interact with each other and influence the local agricultural system at higher altitude. The abiotic factors manipulate the microenvironment of soil microbial communities which eventually influence the activity of soil fauna and flora in the soil ecosystem that determines plant growth, resulting in agricultural productivity. Due to the course of these factors, decomposition pattern and rate in the ecosystem are altered, and the decomposition pattern/rate of crop residue has released the nutrients in the soil ecosystem which further are utilized by soil microbes and plants as the source of energy, resulting in increased soil productivity. In this perspective, this chapter explores the mystery of interrelationship of soil ecosystem functioning and various factors that govern the systematic agricultural productivity.