Estrutura da comunidade da mesofauna e macrofauna do solo em cafezais e em áreas de florestas adjacentes no bioma Mata Atlântica

Abstract

The state of Minas Gerais is the largest national producer of Arabica coffee. Much of this production occurs in monoculture systems, which contributes to an environment with restricted diversity of food resources and microhabitats for beneficial soil organisms. The mesofauna and macrofauna communities inhabit both the soil and the litter, and, through their activities, have the potential to alter the soil structure, directly or indirectly performing ecological functions and ecosystem services. Some of these services, such as nutrient cycling, are closely related to soil fertility and, consequently, to the productivity of crops established in the cultivation system. Given the above, the general objective of this study was to evaluate the structure of the mesofauna and macrofauna community in areas of higher and lower productivity of coffee, using adjacent forest areas as a reference system. This study was conducted in the municipality of Santo Antônio do Amparo, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Sampling was performed using pitfall traps baited with human feces. The sampled mesofauna and macrofauna were classified into taxonomic levels with class and order. Coleoptera were identified to the family level and Araneae were identified to the genera and morphospecies. Generalized linear models (GLMs) were estimated to evaluate the effect of land use change on the diversity of soil communities. A distance-based redundancy analysis (dbRDA), followed by variable selection, was used to evaluate changes in community composition between land uses. Variance partitioning analysis (VPA) was used to evaluate the contribution of soil physicochemical variables and land use on the composition of mesofauna and macrofauna. There was a reduction in the abundance, richness and Hill numbers 1 and 2 of Coleoptera and Araneae communities with the conversion of forest to coffee plantations. However, for the general soil mesofauna and macrofauna, drastic reductions in the abundance of most taxa were observed. The APV analysis revealed a strong influence of land use on the structure of Coleoptera and the mesofauna and macrofauna. However, for Araneae, the greatest contribution observed was from the combined factors between land use and environmental variables. The dbRDA analysis showed a clear pattern of separation between the macrofauna sampled in the coffee plantations with higher and lower productivity and in the adjacent forests. From this study, it was possible to verify that the soil macrofauna had a distinct composition in the coffee plantations with higher and lower productivity and in the forest adjacent to the coffee plantations inserted in the Atlantic Forest biome. Future studies on the different management practices in the coffee plantations will be valuable, since the coffee plantations impact the soil macrofauna and mesofauna, and the latter was responsive to the different productivities of the coffee plantations.and can be an important indicator of soil changes that may be influencing the productivity of these coffee plantations.