Abstract
Purpose
The influence of tropical fruticulture that was established in Amazonian dark earth was investigated by considering changes in soil physical and chemical properties. Soil samples were collected at two layers (0–0.1 and 0.1–0.2 m) under two dissimilar conditions: naturalized archaeological site (Amazonian dark earth) vs. tropical fruticulture.
Material and methods
We evaluated soil texture (clay, sand, and silt contents), bulk density, soil porosity, soil resistance, carbon stock (C stock), soil moisture, geometric mean diameter, weighted average diameter, average diameter < 2 mm, average diameter > 2 mm, soil pH, exchangeable cations (Al3+, Ca2+, Mg2+, K+), potential acidity, soil organic carbon (SOC), and available P.
Results and discussion
Our results emphasized the soil physico-chemical changes as influenced by tropical fruticulture in the Amazonian dark earth. The PCA and SEM showed that the tropical fruticulture had an overall negative effect on available P, Ca2+, GMD, soil aggregation, SOC, C stock, bulk density, and soil resistance.
Conclusion
The results of our study highlighted the importance of considering the Amazonian dark earth as an archaeological site, and when necessary for food production, we must consider soil management practices to promote soil ecosystem avoiding soil quality loss. Thus, long-term experiments in the studied sites considering soil management may exploit different feedback among tropical fruticulture and the Amazonian dark earth.
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Data availability
Data will be made available on a reasonable request.
Code availability
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Acknowledgements
We thank the GEBIOS (Soil Biology Research Group, @Gebios) for practical support. We thank FAPESQ-PB for facilitating the post-doc studies of the second author.
Funding
Tancredo Souza was supported by a research fellowship from Paraíba State Research Fundation (FAPESQ-PB), Brazil.
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Conceptualization, WBN, TAFS, JJCS, BCM, and MCCC; methodology, IAO, TAFS, and MCCC, WOA; software, MCCC, TAFS, and WBN; validation, WBN and TAFS; formal analysis, TAFS and MCCC; investigation, WBN, TAFS, JJCS, BCM, and MCCC; resources, IAO, WOC, TAFS, and FPO; data curation, MCCC; writing—original draft preparation, TAFS and MCCC; writing—review and editing, TAFS and MCCC; visualization, WBN, TAFS, JJCS, BCM, IAO, WOA, FPO, and MCCC; supervision, TAFS; project administration, MCCC; funding acquisition, MCCC and FPO. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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do Nascimento, W.B., de Souza, T.A.F., Silva, J.J.C. et al. Physical–chemical characterization of Amazonian dark earth as influenced by tropical fruticulture in western Brazil’s Legal Amazon. J Soils Sediments (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-024-03757-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-024-03757-2