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The diversity and abundance of soil macrofauna under different agroforestry practices in the drylands of southern Ethiopia

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Abstract

The conversion of natural lands to agricultural uses is a significant threat to soil biodiversity. Within agriculture, monoculture based systems are the most common which often result in low biodiversity because they impact the abundance, diversity, and composition of soil macrofauna (SMF). The objective of this paper was to analyze SMF abundance and diversity across different agroforestry practices (AFP) in the drylands of southern Ethiopia. The soil monolith and soil samples were collected from homegarden, cropland, woodlot, and trees on soil and water conservation based AFP using the standard Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute manual, and the identification was done based on morphological characteristics and standard identification keys. The abundance, occurrence, and community composition of SMF were significantly different across the different AFPs (P < 0.05). In this study, 378 SMF belonging to 13 families, including unnamed were identified. The soil ecosystem of AFP was dominated by earthworms (relative abundance = 0.43), followed by termites (relative abundance = 0.12). The homegarden AFP type had a significantly higher number of SMF occurrence index of 46.03 (174), followed by woodlot, 26.72 (101) practices, and the lowest was recorded under cropland, 12.70 (48). The abundance, diversity, richness, and similarity of SMF were significantly related to soil total nitrogen and organic carbon. Phosphorus and pH were significantly related to the abundance and richness of SMF. The homegarden and woodlot AFP types were suitable for SMF biodiversity conservation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful and appreciate Arab Minch University Zoological Laboratory’s technical and genuine facility assistance. Moreover, the Hawassa soil laboratory center is also duly acknowledged. We acknowledge the Institute of International Education-Scholars Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management (MINA), and NORGLOBAL 2 project “Towards a climate-smart policy and management framework for conservation and use of dry forest ecosystem services and resources in Ethiopia [grant number: 303600]” for supporting the research stay of Emiru Birhane at NMBU. The reviewers on the previous version of the manuscript are duly acknowledged for their contribution in improving the current version of the manuscript.

Funding

There was no specific fund for this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resource Management, Wolaita Sodo University, P.O. Box 128, Wolaita Sodo, Ethiopia

    Nebiyou Masebo

  2. Department of Land Resource Management and Environmental Protection, Mekelle University, P.O. Box 231, Tigray, Ethiopia

    Emiru Birhane

  3. Department of Biology, Arba Minch University, P.O. Box 138, Arba Minch, Ethiopia

    Nebiyou Masebo & Serekebrehane Takele

  4. Department of Applied Biology, Adama Science and Technology University, P.O. Box 231, Adama, Ethiopia

    Zerihun Belay

  5. Department of Agricultural Chemistry and Food Science, UAM, Postal Code: 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Juan J. Lucena & Araceli Perez-Sanz

  6. Environment and Forest Research Institute, P.O. Box 231, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Agena Anjulo

  7. Institute of Climate and Society, Mekelle University, P.O.Box 231, Mekelle, Ethiopia

    Emiru Birhane

  8. Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway

    Emiru Birhane

Authors
  1. Nebiyou Masebo
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  2. Emiru Birhane
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  3. Serekebrehane Takele
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  4. Zerihun Belay
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  5. Juan J. Lucena
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  6. Araceli Perez-Sanz
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  7. Agena Anjulo
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Contributions

NM worked on data collection, data analysis, and writing the original draft, EB helped highly in all case, and ST, ZB, JJL, APS and AA helped in result interpretation and commenting as well. The publishable versions of this manuscript have been read by all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Nebiyou Masebo or Emiru Birhane.

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Masebo, N., Birhane, E., Takele, S. et al. The diversity and abundance of soil macrofauna under different agroforestry practices in the drylands of southern Ethiopia. Agroforest Syst 98, 441–459 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-023-00921-4

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