Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, Wentworth Way, York YO10 5NG, UK; Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK.
Life Sciences Department, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Oct 1;789:147880. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147880. Epub 2021 May 21.
Managing soil to support biodiversity is important to sustain the ecosystem services provided by soils upon which society depends. There is increasing evidence that functional diversity of soil biota is important for ecosystem services, and has been degraded by intensive agriculture. Importantly, the spatial distribution of reservoirs of soil biota in and surrounding arable fields is poorly understood. In a field experiment, grass-clover ley strips were introduced into four arable fields which had been under continuous intensive/conventional arable rotation for more than 10 years. Earthworm communities in arable fields and newly established grass-clover leys, as well as field boundary land uses (hedgerows and grassy field margins), were monitored over 2 years after arable-to-ley conversions. Within 2 years, earthworm abundance in new leys was 732 ± 244 earthworms m, similar to that in field margin soils (619 ± 355 earthworms m yr) and four times higher than in adjacent arable soil (185 ± 132 earthworms m). Relative to the arable soils, earthworm abundance under the new leys showed changes in community composition, structure and functional group, which were particularly associated with an increase in anecic earthworms; thus new leys became more similar to grassy field margins. Earthworm abundance was similar in new leys that were either connected to biodiversity reservoirs i.e. field margins and hedgerows, or not (installed earthworm barriers). This suggests that, for earthworm communities in typical arable fields, biodiversity reservoirs in adjacent field margins and hedgerows may not be critical for earthworm populations to increase. We conclude that the increase in earthworm abundance in the new leys observed over 2 years was driven by recruitment from the existing residual population in arable soils. Therefore, arable soils are also potential reservoirs of biodiversity.
管理土壤以支持生物多样性对于维持社会依赖的土壤生态系统服务至关重要。越来越多的证据表明，土壤生物区系的功能多样性对于生态系统服务很重要，而集约化农业已经使其退化。重要的是，耕地中土壤生物区系储库的空间分布及其周围耕地的分布情况了解甚少。在田间试验中，将草地三叶草草地引入了四个连续 10 多年采用集约化/常规轮作的耕地。在耕地向草地转化后的 2 年内，监测了耕地和新建立的草地三叶草草地中的蚯蚓群落以及田间边界的土地利用（树篱和草地田埂）。在 2 年内，新草地中的蚯蚓丰度为 732±244 条 m，与田埂土壤（619±355 条 m yr）相似，是相邻耕地土壤（185±132 条 m）的 4 倍。与耕地土壤相比，新草地中的蚯蚓丰度表现出群落组成、结构和功能群的变化，特别是与食碎屑蚯蚓的增加有关；因此，新草地变得更类似于草地田埂。与生物多样性储库（即田埂和树篱）相连或不相连（安装蚯蚓阻隔器）的新草地中的蚯蚓丰度相似。这表明，对于典型耕地中的蚯蚓群落，相邻田埂和树篱中的生物多样性储库对于蚯蚓种群的增加可能并不关键。我们得出的结论是，在 2 年内观察到的新草地中蚯蚓丰度的增加是由耕地中现有剩余种群的繁殖驱动的。因此，耕地也是生物多样性的潜在储库。
