Native forests but not agroforestry systems preserve arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species richness in southern Ethiopia
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Native forests but not agroforestry systems preserve arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species richness in southern Ethiopia Zerihun Belay 1 & Mesele Negash 2 & Janne Kaseva 3 & Mauritz Vestberg 3 & Helena Kahiluoto 4 Received: 25 April 2020 / Accepted: 15 August 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The rapid conversion of native forests to farmland in Ethiopia, the cradle of biodiversity, threatens the diversity of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) pivotal to plant nutrition and carbon sequestration. This study aimed to investigate the impact of this land-use change on the AMF species composition and diversity in southern Ethiopia. Soil samples were collected from nine plots in each of three land-use types: native forest, agroforestry, and khat monocropping. The plots of the three land-use types were located adjacent to each other for each of the nine replicates. Three 10 × 10m subplots per plot were sampled. AMF spores were extracted from the soil samples, spore densities were determined, and species composition and diversity were evaluated through morphological analysis. Both spore density and species richness were statistically significantly higher in the native forest than in the agroforestry plots with no clear difference to khat, whereas the true diversity (exponential of Shannon–Wiener diversity index) did not differ among the three land-use types due to high evenness among the species in agroforestry. In total, 37 AMF morphotypes belonging to 12 genera in Glomeromycota were found, dominated by members of the genera Acaulospora and Glomus. The highest isolation frequency index (78%) was recorded for Acaulospora koskei from native forest. Consequently, the agroforestry system did not appear to aid in preserving the AMF species richness of native forests relative to perennial monocropping, such as khat cultivation. In contrast, the native forest areas can serve as in situ genetic reserves of mycorrhizal symbionts adapted to the local vegetative, edaphic, and microbial conditions. Keywords Agroforestry . Cordia africana . Khat . Land-use type . Native forest . Species diversity
Introduction For several decades in Ethiopia, once the biodiversity cradle of the planet, natural forests have been rapidly converted into farmland. In southern Ethiopia, forests have been converted mainly into agroforestry systems and further into agricultural systems of monocropped perennials such as coffee, pineapple, and eucalyptus, and increasingly to khat (Catha edulis), which is used and exported as a stimulant (Abebe 2005; Abebe et al.
* Zerihun Belay [email protected]; [email protected] 1
School of Applied Natural Science, Adama Science and Technology University, Adama, Ethiopia
2
Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia
3
Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Helsinki, Finland
4
LUT University, Lappeenranta, Finland
2010). This land-use change has resulted in soil degradation, with a decline in soil organic matter (SOM) and nitrog
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