Seasonal diversity of soil microarthropods in two different vegetable plots of Aligarh-India
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Tropical Ecology https://doi.org/10.1007/s42965-020-00091-9
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Seasonal diversity of soil microarthropods in two different vegetable plots of Aligarh-India Mohammad Jalaluddin Abbas1 · Hina Parwez1 Received: 4 August 2019 / Revised: 1 July 2020 / Accepted: 7 July 2020 © International Society for Tropical Ecology 2020
Abstract Soil microarthropods are intimately linked with health and fertility of soil as well as plant productivity. In India, despite their rich faunal diversity, information on soil microarthropods diversity and interactions with variety of edaphic factors is extremely limited. The present study is carried out to observe seasonal diversity of soil microarthropods in two different vegetable plots in Aligarh. The two vegetable plots chosen in this study where predominantly Tomato (Lycopersicom esculentum) and Brinjal (Solanum melongena, family-Solaneceae) have been grown and sapling has been sown in April when plants attained a height of approximately 6″. The samples collected randomly from a depth of 5 cm. @ of four samples per month for a period of 1 year. All microarthropods extracted with the help of Tullgren funnel apparatus. Among soil microarthropods collected, Collembolans have highest average monthly density (15.20 inds./sample) in brinjal plot and greatest abundance (18.7 inds./sample) in tomato plot. A highly significant negative correlation observed between Collembolans population with reference to soil temperature (r = – 0.867, P 0.05). Neutral pH level preferably influences the Collembolans as well as Acarina (mites). Peak population buildup of Collembola and Acarina was found in spring, and winter months, whereas sharp decline in summer months was observed. Therefore, this study clearly establishes the fact that habitat difference as well as edaphic factors play important roles in buildup of soil microarthropods population. Keywords Collembolans · Diversity · Edaphic factors · Habitat difference · Microarthropods
Introduction Soil biodiversity can be evaluated by maximizing the numbers of reliable soil indicators that they exist in the soil as functional attributes in soil ecosystem. Apart from the functional attributes of soil ecosystem, soil microarthropods make up a large and functionally important part of the soil biota (Siepel and Maaskamp 1994; Maraun et al. 2003) and they contribute significantly in decomposition by shredding and feeding on soil organic matter/fungi, and to release nutrients available (Teuben and Verhoef 1992; Siepel and Maaskamp 1994; Mc Gonigle 1995; Krivtsov et al. 2004; Schneider et al. 2004) for plants. Thus, they help in promoting plant growth either directly or indirectly. Among soil microarthropods, Collembolans are vital source to sustain * Mohammad Jalaluddin Abbas [email protected] 1
Department of Zoology, Laboratory of Ecology, AMU, UP, Aligarh, India
the soil health and they never cause diseases except very few cases. Consequently, soil microarthropods such as Collembolans are good bio-indicators of arable soil quality (R
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