Soil fauna community in the black soil of northeast China under different conservation tillage systems

Authors: ZHAN, LILI - Chinese Academy Of Sciences; Li, Shuxian; XU, YANLI - Chinese Academy Of Sciences; ZHANG, XINGYI - Chinese Academy Of Sciences; PAN, FENGJUAN - Chinese Academy Of Sciences; ZHANG, SIJIA - Chinese Academy Of Sciences; PEI, XICHAO - Heihe Entry-Exit Inspection And Quarantine Bureau; CHEN, PENGYIN - University Of Arkansas

Submitted to: European Journal of Soil Biology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/29/2014
Publication Date: 8/5/2014
Citation: Zhan, L., Li, S., Xu, Y., Zhang, X., Pan, F., Zhang, S., Pei, X., Chen, P. 2014. Soil fauna community in the black soil of northeast China under different conservation tillage systems. European Journal of Soil Biology. 65(5):462-469.

Interpretive Summary: Different tillage methods could affect the soil ecosystem. Soil fauna is an important component in the soil ecosystem. Under different tillage systems, the population of soil fauna could be changed through the change of the soil moisture and soil environment. This study tested whether conservation tillage or conventional tillage of a black soil field rotated with soybean, wheat, and corn in northeast China could affect the community and the distribution of soil fauna. Two different conservation tillage systems, no-tillage and less-tillage, as well as a conventional tillage system (rotary tillage) were chosen in this study. There were 4,637 soil fauna individuals isolated from different tillage systems. The result showed that the numbers of different fauna were higher in conservation tillage systems than that in the conventional tillage system. The faunal accumulation in the soil surface layer also was obviously higher in the two conservation tillage systems than in the conventional tillage system. These findings indicate that conservation tillage systems have benefit for the protection of soil ecosystem and are recommended for use in the black soil field in northeast China.

Technical Abstract: Soil fauna is an important component in soil ecosystem. Through the soil moisture changes, soil environment is changed under different tillage systems, and then the population of soil fauna also is changed. This study tested whether conservation tillage or conventional tillage (CT) of black soil field rotated with soybean, wheat, and corn in northeast of China could affect the community and the distribution of soil fauna. Two different conservation tillage systems, no-tillage (NT) and less-tillage (LT), as well as a conventional tillage system (rotary tillage) were chosen in this study. We hypothesized that: (i) the abundance, the diversity and the family number of soil fauna are higher in conservation tillage system than conventional tillage system. (ii) The conservation tillage system has the fauna accumulation in the soil surface layer, but the conventional tillage system doesn’t. (iii) The similarity of soil fauna population between two different conservation tillage systems is higher than that between the conservation tillage system and the conventional tillage system. There were 4,637 soil fauna individuals isolated from this study, which included 2 phyla, 8 classes, 13 orders, and 62 families. The result showed that the abundance and the number of faunal family were higher in conservation tillage system than that in the conventional tillage system. The faunal accumulation in the soil surface layer also was obviously higher in two conservation tillage systems than that in the conventional tillage system. The similarity index between two conservation tillage systems was 0.88. These findings indicate that the conservation tillage systems have benefit to the protection of soil ecosystem.