TY - JOUR
T1 - Intensive agriculture reduces soil biodiversity across Europe
AU - Tsiafouli, Maria A.
AU - Thebault, Elisa
AU - Sgardelis, Stefanos P.
AU - de Ruiter, Peter C.
AU - van der Putten, Wim H.
AU - Birkhofer, Klaus
AU - Hemerik, Lia
AU - de Vries, Franciska T.
AU - Bardgett, Richard D.
AU - Brady, Mark Vincent
AU - Bjornlund, Lisa
AU - Bracht Jörgensen, Helene
AU - Christensen, Soren
AU - D'Hertefeldt, Tina
AU - Hotes, Stefan
AU - Hol, W. H. Gera
AU - Frouz, Jan
AU - Liiri, Mira
AU - Mortimer, Simon R.
AU - Setala, Heikki
AU - Tzanopoulos, Joseph
AU - Uteseny, Karoline
AU - Pizl, Vaclav
AU - Stary, Josef
AU - Wolters, Volkmar
AU - Hedlund, Katarina
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Soil biodiversity plays a key role in regulating the processes that underpin the delivery of ecosystem goods and services in terrestrial ecosystems. Agricultural intensification is known to change the diversity of individual groups of soil biota, but less is known about how intensification affects biodiversity of the soil food web as a whole, and whether or not these effects may be generalized across regions. We examined biodiversity in soil food webs from grasslands, extensive, and intensive rotations in four agricultural regions across Europe: in Sweden, the UK, the Czech Republic and Greece. Effects of land-use intensity were quantified based on structure and diversity among functional groups in the soil food web, as well as on community-weighted mean body mass of soil fauna. We also elucidate land-use intensity effects on diversity of taxonomic units within taxonomic groups of soil fauna. We found that between regions soil food web diversity measures were variable, but that increasing land-use intensity caused highly consistent responses. In particular, land-use intensification reduced the complexity in the soil food webs, as well as the community-weighted mean body mass of soil fauna. In all regions across Europe, species richness of earthworms, Collembolans, and oribatid mites was negatively affected by increased land-use intensity. The taxonomic distinctness, which is a measure of taxonomic relatedness of species in a community that is independent of species richness, was also reduced by land-use intensification. We conclude that intensive agriculture reduces soil biodiversity, making soil food webs less diverse and composed of smaller bodied organisms. Land-use intensification results in fewer functional groups of soil biota with fewer and taxonomically more closely related species. We discuss how these changes in soil biodiversity due to land-use intensification may threaten the functioning of soil in agricultural production systems.
AB - Soil biodiversity plays a key role in regulating the processes that underpin the delivery of ecosystem goods and services in terrestrial ecosystems. Agricultural intensification is known to change the diversity of individual groups of soil biota, but less is known about how intensification affects biodiversity of the soil food web as a whole, and whether or not these effects may be generalized across regions. We examined biodiversity in soil food webs from grasslands, extensive, and intensive rotations in four agricultural regions across Europe: in Sweden, the UK, the Czech Republic and Greece. Effects of land-use intensity were quantified based on structure and diversity among functional groups in the soil food web, as well as on community-weighted mean body mass of soil fauna. We also elucidate land-use intensity effects on diversity of taxonomic units within taxonomic groups of soil fauna. We found that between regions soil food web diversity measures were variable, but that increasing land-use intensity caused highly consistent responses. In particular, land-use intensification reduced the complexity in the soil food webs, as well as the community-weighted mean body mass of soil fauna. In all regions across Europe, species richness of earthworms, Collembolans, and oribatid mites was negatively affected by increased land-use intensity. The taxonomic distinctness, which is a measure of taxonomic relatedness of species in a community that is independent of species richness, was also reduced by land-use intensification. We conclude that intensive agriculture reduces soil biodiversity, making soil food webs less diverse and composed of smaller bodied organisms. Land-use intensification results in fewer functional groups of soil biota with fewer and taxonomically more closely related species. We discuss how these changes in soil biodiversity due to land-use intensification may threaten the functioning of soil in agricultural production systems.
KW - agricultural intensification
KW - body mass
KW - ecosystem services
KW - functional
KW - groups
KW - soil food web
KW - taxonomic breadth
KW - taxonomic distinctness
KW - terrestrial ecosystems
U2 - 10.1111/gcb.12752
DO - 10.1111/gcb.12752
M3 - Article
C2 - 25242445
SN - 1354-1013
VL - 21
SP - 973
EP - 985
JO - Global Change Biology
JF - Global Change Biology
IS - 2
ER -