Soil physicochemical property and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi resilience to degradation and deforestation of a dry evergreen Afromontane forest in central Ethiopia

Abstract

AbstractWe investigated the soil physicochemical property and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) resilience to the degradation and deforestation of a dry evergreen Afromontane forest, the Chilimo Forest (CF). Topsoil (1‐10 cm) physicochemical property, AMF spore abundance (SA), and AMF infectivity were determined across four land uses, viz., natural forest (NF), shrubland (ShL), cropland (CrL), and grazing land (GrL). According to the permutational multivariate analysis of variance and nonmetric multidimensional scaling results, soil physicochemical property was resilient to degradation (NF‐ShL conversion) but not deforestation (NF‐CrL or NF‐GrL conversions) of CF. The one‐way ANOVA results indicated that most soil physicochemical variables were significantly (p < 0.05) affected by land‐use change. Soil organic matter and total nitrogen, in particular, reduced significantly (p < 0.05) by up to 48% and 57% due to NF‐CrL and NF‐GrL conversions, respectively. Whereas SA was found to be resilient to both CF degradation and deforestation, AMF infectivity was resilient only to NF‐CrL conversion. Generally, our results did not show a similar pattern in soil physicochemical property, SA, and AMF infectivity resilience to degradation and deforestation. However, in the case of NF‐GrL conversion, both soil physicochemical property and AMF infectivity exhibited significantly (p < 0.05) low resilience. Based on our results, we conclude that soil physicochemical property and AMF are important factors to consider in CF restoration planning. When planting sites are either the croplands or grazing lands, soil amendment could be recommended. AMF inoculation, however, could be recommended when the planting sites are grazing lands. These recommendations may also apply widely to dry evergreen Afromontane forests restoration but additional studies are required.