A sensitive soil biological indicator to changes in land-use in regions with Mediterranean climate.

ABSTRACT: The demand for reliable indicators to quantify soil health has increased recently. We propose and test the use of soil microbial functional diversity as an indicator of multifunctional performance in agriculturally important areas. Agricultural fields in the Mediterranean and semiarid regions of Israel were selected as test sites and measured in Spring and Autumn seasons. Measurements included microbial parameters, basic soil abiotic properties and biological responses to agricultural management relative to measures of a natural ecosystem. Using a canonical correlation analysis we found that soil moisture was the most important basic soil property with different responses in Spring and Autumn. In Spring, it had a strongly negative relation with microbial biomass (MB), community level physi

SUBMITTER: Steinberger Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9789127 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature