Analysis of complex trophic networks reveals the signature of land-use intensification on soil communities in agroecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Increasing evidence suggests that agricultural intensification is a threat to many groups of soil biota, but how the impacts of land-use intensity on soil organisms translate into changes in comprehensive soil interaction networks remains unclear. Here for the first time, we use environmental DNA to examine total soil multi-trophic diversity and food web structure for temperate agroecosystems along a gradient of land-use intensity. We tested for response patterns in key properties of the soil food webs in sixteen fields ranging from arable crops to grazed permanent grasslands as part of a long-term management experiment. We found that agricultural intensification drives reductions in trophic group diversity, although taxa richness remained unchanged. Intensification generally reduced the c

SUBMITTER: Bloor JMG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8440573 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature