Abstract
Land-use changes and especially management intensification currently pose a major threat to biodiversity both on and beneath the soil surface. With a comparative approach, we investigated how management intensity in orchards and meadows influences soil macro-invertebrate communities in a North-Italian Alpine region. We compared soil fauna assemblies from traditional low-input sites with respective intensively managed ones. As expected, the taxonomical richness and diversity were lower in both intensive management types. Extensive management of both types revealed similar communities, while intensification led to substantial differences between management types. From these results, we conclude that intensification of agricultural practices severely alters the soil fauna community and biodiversity in general, however, the direction of these changes is governed by the management type. In our view, extensive management, traditional for mountain areas, favors soil fauna communities that have adapted over a long time and can thus be viewed as a sustainable reference condition for new production systems that consider the protection of soil diversity in order to conserve essential ecosystem functions.
Highlights
The industrialization of agriculture characterized by high input practices in most cases increases production but severely hampers the overall diversity of life that inhabits managed areas from single fields to whole landscapes [1,2]
Biodiversity loss and the resulting possible absence of ecosystem services are considered to be so profound that they pose a threat to the current and future food provisioning system [8]
Developing sustainable agricultural practices that conserve biodiversity and secure the provision of food in the long run, has become a global goal and challenge [8,9,10,11]. It is of major interest (1) to describe the state of production systems that might sustain a major proportion of biodiversity and are considered sustainable long-term and Agronomy 2020, 10, 767; doi:10.3390/agronomy10060767
Summary
The industrialization of agriculture characterized by high input practices in most cases increases production but severely hampers the overall diversity of life that inhabits managed areas from single fields to whole landscapes [1,2]. The present study aims to investigate the soil communities of two production systems, hay meadows and fruit orchards, both characterized by traditional, extensive, and sustainable production systems and to evaluate changes in community structures after the intensification of these management practices. We test (1) if taxa richness and diversity decline from extensive to intensive management; (2) if meadows and orchards harbor a different community of soil macro-invertebrates and (3) if intensification influences the community of both management types.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
