Effect of agriculture land use on standard cellulosic substrates breakdown and invertebrates’ community

Cavallet, Bruna Valencio and Silva, Edpool Rocha and Baretta, Carolina Riviera Duarte Maluche and Rezende, Renan de Souza (2022) Effect of agriculture land use on standard cellulosic substrates breakdown and invertebrates’ community. COMMUNITY ECOLOGY, 23 (3). pp. 277-288. ISSN 1585-8553 (print); 1588-2756 (online)

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Abstract

Ensuring the effectiveness of method in maintaining and recovering the productive capacity of degraded soils, e.g., no-till farming, is more important than opening new agricultural frontiers. Organic matter breakdown is a key ecosystem process with implications on aquatic food webs and biogeochemical cycles. Our objective was to quantify the standard cellulosic substrate (cotton strips and balsa wood) mass loss in no-till soybean and forest areas as control. We use bags of two mesh sizes (0.5 mm vs. 10 mm), on soil surface and buried-in-soil (10 cm) for 30, 70, and 90 days in all three sampling sites: no- till soybean vs. adjacent forest vs. forest native. The invertebrate community by pitfall collector and soil for chemical char- acterization was also sampled. The high microbial breakdown of balsa wood buried-in-soil was observed in no-till soybean systems (± 5% compared to forest), indicating a superficial fertilizing effect and negative effect to decomposers. The mass loss in balsa wood in soil surface ranges from 15% (fine mesh in the adjacent forest) to 25% smaller (fine mesh in no-till soybean systems) compared to forest native. Microbial breakdown in cotton buried was 45% greater in no-till soybean sys- tems compared to forest native. The cotton breakdown by invertebrate activity on soil surface was higher in the forest areas compared to no-till soybean (30% smaller) due to the quality and edaphic conditions of the adjacent litter. Finally, adjacent forest close to crops may provide important ecosystem services for productive systems.

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