Temperature Mainly Determined the Seasonal Variations in Soil Faunal Communities in Semiarid Areas

Zhiyong Li, Xi Yang, Wei Long, Ranran Song, Xuchao Zhu, Tongchuan Li (), Ming’an Shao (), Mingyu Chen and Miao Gan
Additional contact information
Zhiyong Li: College of Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Xi Yang: College of Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Wei Long: College of Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Ranran Song: College of Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Xuchao Zhu: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Tongchuan Li: College of Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Ming’an Shao: College of Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Mingyu Chen: College of Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Miao Gan: College of Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: The implementation of the Grain for Green Project has increased vegetation coverage and provided suitable habitats and food resources for soil fauna, thereby promoting the development of soil faunal communities. Studying seasonal variations in soil fauna communities in different vegetation areas can improve our understanding of the mechanisms that drive soil fauna recovery. We selected five typical artificially restored vegetation habitats, including Populus simonii (POS), Pinus tabulaeformis (PIT), Caragana korshinskii (CAK), Stipa bungeana (STB), and Medicago sativa (MES), and one farmland ( Zea mays , FAL) habitat on the Loess Plateau. In this study, soil fauna communities and environmental factors were investigated during spring (May), summer (August), and autumn (November). Among the habitats, the STB habitat had the largest seasonal variation in soil faunal density (from 1173 ind·m −2 in May to 10,743 ind·m −2 in August), and the FAL habitat had the smallest (from 2827 ind·m −2 in August to 5550 ind·m −2 in November). Among the restored vegetation habitats, Acarina (44.89–88.56%) had the highest relative abundance of all taxa. The redundancy analysis (RDA) results showed that among the factors driving seasonal variation in soil animal communities, temperature (47.41%) was the most important, followed by precipitation (22.60%). In addition, the dominant groups, Acarina and Collembola, played an influential role in seasonal variations in soil faunal density. Temperature mainly determined the seasonal variations in soil faunal communities. Seasonal factors should be considered when conducting soil fauna research, as they contribute to biodiversity conservation and regional ecological management in the Loess Plateau.

Keywords: Loess Plateau; seasonal variation; soil faunal; temperature; vegetation restoration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/4/505/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/4/505/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:4:p:505-:d:1374721

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().