Fauna-associated changes in soil biochemical properties beneath isolated trees in a desert pastureland of India and their importance in soil restoration

G. Tripathi (), S. Ram, B. M. Sharma and G. Singh ()
Additional contact information
G. Tripathi: Jai Narayan Vyas University
S. Ram: Jai Narayan Vyas University
B. M. Sharma: Jai Narayan Vyas University
G. Singh: Arid Forest Research Institute

Environment Systems and Decisions, 2009, vol. 29, issue 3, 318-329

Abstract: Abstract Biodiversity conservation and management of natural resources are the best options to restore and increase productivity of degrading pastureland in dry areas. Hence, arthropod abundance, organic matter, respiration, and dehydrogenase activity were measured in canopy zone soil of Prosopis cineraria (PC), Acacia nilotica (AN), Zizyphus nummularia (ZN), Capparis decidua (CD), and Acacia senegal (AS) associated with grasses with a view to establish interrelation for productivity enhancement of pastureland. Pure grass bock outside tree canopy was control plot. Acari, Myriapoda, Coleoptera, Isoptera, Collembola, and other soil arthropods were the major soil faunal groups. Integration of tree in pastureland enhanced population of soil arthropod by 9–65-fold in May 2001 and 8–13-fold in August/September as compared with control. The trends of changes in soil organic matter (SOM), soil respiration (SR), and dehydrogenase activity (DHA) were similar to the changes in soil arthropod population, indicating the role of soil fauna in facilitating biochemical processes and soil fertility. Two, eight, and nine times greater SOM, SR, and DHA, respectively, in silvipastoral system than the values in control suggest the beneficial effects of trees on improvement in biochemical processes and thus biodiversity in pastureland, as supported by negative values of relative tree effects (RTE). Microbial activities were highest in the ZN system, which had highest abundance of soil arthropods. In the other systems, CD and AS systems showed greater soil arthropod abundance and biological activities than with the PC and AN systems. Therefore, Z. nummularia-, C. decidua-, and A. senegal-based silvipastoral systems and related soil fauna may be promoted for enhancement of biological activity and productivity of pastureland in desert. The strategy may be adopted for developing a sustainable pedoecosystem in a region of the world where agriculture is notoriously difficult.

Keywords: Arid region; Biochemical changes; Nutrients; Pasturelands; Soil arthropods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10669-008-9196-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:envsyd:v:29:y:2009:i:3:d:10.1007_s10669-008-9196-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/10669

DOI: 10.1007/s10669-008-9196-y

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment Systems and Decisions from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().