EFFECTS OF SLOPE POSITION AND SAMPLING TIME ON SOIL FAUNA DIVERSITY INDICES UNDER COCONUT CULTIVATION PLANTED IN A LOW SLOPE GRADIENT AREA: A SHORT-TERM STUDY

Khairun Nisa Kamarudin, Mohammad Aizad Mohamad Sulaimin, Maulana Insanul Kamil, Irwin Mirza Umami

Abstract


A short-term studies of soil fauna on the low slope gradient under coconut plantation is not well explored due to tedious and time taken for identification. This may ignore the baseline information to understand the relationships between the abiotic factors. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the effects of the slope position and sampling time on the diversity indices of soil fauna under coconut cultivation planted in the low slope gradient area. The study was conducted in December 2021 at the coconut farm, UiTM Perlis Branch, Malaysia using a Randomized Complete Block Design with four replications. This coconut farm lies on a low slope gradient ranging from 0o to 6o. In total, 96 pitfall traps were installed within the coconut area based on three slope positions (i.e., S1-bottom, S2-middle and S3-top). The soil fauna was collected three times (i.e., T1, T2 and T3) within a month of the study period. The soil fauna specimens were identified up to family level and five of the soil fauna indices (i.e, richness, abundance, Shannon-Wiener diversity index, Simpson’s reciprocal index and evenness index) were calculated. As a result, 1,335 individuals from 10 orders and 15 families were identified in this study. The Formicidae (69.7%) and Scolopendridae (0.1%) groups had the most abundant and lowest number of individual soil fauna found in the coconut farm, respectively. Meanwhile, Termitidae (6.5%), Gryllidae (3.4%), Carabidae (2.8%), Acrididae and Paradioxosomaridae (1.6%) and Alydidae (1.5%) are the most average of individual soil fauna. Results showed that the abundance was significantly highest (41±8.4) at the top position (S3) compared to the other positions and this might be caused by the microclimate factor like moisture and temperature. Meanwhile, the sampling time of T3 shows a significantly highest of richness (7±1.2), the Shannon-Wiener diversity index (1.2±0.3), and Simpson’s reciprocal index (2.5±0.6) and this might be caused by management practices like weed control. Overall, this coconut farm has moderate diversity with high variability of soil fauna during the study.


Full Text:

PDF

References


Alice, C., Marcell, K.P., William, J.K., Tim, A., Connal, D.E., Mary, W.G., Andreas, H., Thomas, N. & Ingolf, S.D. 2015. Temperature versus resource constraints: which factors determine bee diversity on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania? Global Ecology and Biogeography 24(6): 642–652.

Alonso, L.E. & Agosti, D. 2000. Biodiversity studies, monitoring and ants: An overview. Agosti, D., Majer, J.D., Alonso, L.E. & Schultz, T.R. (eds.). Ants – Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity, pp. 1–24. Washington: Smithsonian Institute.

Araujo, J.L., Pastori, P.L., Gomes, V.F.F., Filho, P.F.M. & Nunes, L.A.P.L. 2018. Changes in the abundance and diversity of soil arthropods in the cultivation of fruit crops. Revista Ciencia Agronomica 49: 537–546.

Azhar, I. & Musa, M.J. 1988. Studies on the faunal and floral communities in the debris of the coconut crown. Proceedings of the National Coconut Conference, pp. 411–434. Kuala Lumpur: MARDI.

Burton, V.J., Contu, S., De Palma, A., Hill, S.L.L., Albrecht, H., Bone, J.S., Carpenter, D., Corstanje, R., De Smedt, P., Farrell, M., Ford, H.L., Hudson, L.N., Inward, K., Jones, D.T., Kosewska, A., Lo-Man-Hung, N.F., Magura, T., Mulder, C., Murvanidze, M., Newbold, T., Smith, J., Suarez, A.V., Suryometaram, S., Tothmeresz, B., Uehara-Prado, M., Vanbergen, A.J., Verheyen, K., Wuyts, K., Scharlemann, J.P.W., Eggleton, P. & Purvis, A. 2022. Land use and soil characteristics affect soil organisms differently from above-ground assemblages. BMC Ecology and Evolution 22: 135.

Cole, L., Buckland, S.M. & Bardgett, R.D. 2008. Influence of disturbance and nitrogen addition on plant and soil animal diversity in grassland. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 40: 505–514.

Coleman, D.C. & Wall, D.H. 2015. Soil fauna: occurrence, biodiversity, and roles in ecosystem function. In. Eldor, A.P. (ed.). Soil Microbiology, Ecology, and Biochemistry, 4th Edition. pp. 111–149. Oxford: Academic Press.

Coyle, D.R., Nagendra, U.J., Taylor, M.K., Campbell, J.H., Cunard, C.E., Joslin, A.H., Mundepi, A., Phillips, C.A. & Callaham, M.A. 2017. Soil fauna responses to natural disturbances, invasive species, and global climate change: current state of the science and a call to action. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 110: 116–133.

de Santo, F.B., Guerra, N., Vianna, M.S., Torress, J.P.M., Marchioro, C.A. & Niemeyer, J.C. 2019. Laboratory and field tests for risk assessment of metsulfuron-methyl-based herbicides for soil fauna. Chemosphere 222: 645–655.

Dias, R.K. & Peiris, H.A. 2015. Ground-dwelling ant assemblages (family: Formicidae) in six coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) plantations in Sri Lanka. Journal of Insect Biodiversity 3(14): 1–10.

DOA. 2018. Common Soils of Peninsular Malaysia: Soil Profile Description and Analytical Data. Putrajaya: Department of Agriculture.

Ellers, J., Berg, M.P., Dias, A.T.C., Fontana, S., Ooms, A. & Moretti, M. 2018. Diversity in form and function: Vertical distribution of soil fauna mediates multidimensional trait variation. Journal of Animal Ecology 87: 933–944.

Fauzi, A., Apriyanto, D., Zarkani, A., Santoso, S., Kamil, M.I. & Wibowo, H.E. 2023. Abundance and diversity of soil arthropods in the secondary forest and park at the University of Bengkulu. Journal of Natural Resources and Environmental Management 13(1): 168–174.

Flatt, T. & Weisser, W.W. 2000. The effects of mutualistic ants on aphid life history traits. Ecology 81(12): 3522–3529.

Gerlach, J., Samways, K.N. & Pryke, J. 2013. Terrestrial invertebrates as bioindicators: An overview of available taxonomic groups. Journal of Insect Conservation 17: 831–850.

Goberna, M., Navarro-Cano, J.A., Valiente-Banuet, A., Garcia, C. & Verdu, M. 2014. Abiotic stress tolerance and competation-related traits underlie phylogenetic clustering in soil bacterial communities. Ecology Letters 17:1191–1202.

He, X., Wu, P., Zhang, H. & Cui, L. 2012. Effects of slope gradient on the community structures and diversities of soil fauna. Acta Ecologica Sinica 32: 3701–3713.

Jiang, C., Feng, J., Zhu, S.F. & Shui, W. 2021. Characteristics of the soil microbial communities in different slope positions along an inverted stone slope in a degraded karst Tiankeng. Biology (Basel) 10(6): 474.

Kamarudin, K.N., Sulaimin, M.A.M., Kamil, M.I. & Umami, I.M. 2024. Spatial and temporal variability of soil fauna under coconut cultivation on lateritic soil. Serangga 29(1): 156–172.

Kottek, M., Grieser, J., Becj, C., Rudolf, B. & Rubel, F. 2006. World map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification update. Meteorologische Zeitschrift 15(3): 259–263.

Lavelle, P., Decaens, T., Aubert, M., Barot, S., Blouin, M., Bureau, F., Margerie, P., Mora, P. & Rossi, J.P. 2006. Soil invertebrates and ecosystem services. European Journal of Soil Biology 42: S3–S15.

Lee, K.E. & Foster, R.C. 1991. Soil fauna and soil structure. Australian Journal of Soil Research 29: 745–775.

Liu, R.T. 2012. Relationships between soil fauna and rainfall change in desert steppe: A review. Chinese Journal of Ecology 31(3): 760–765. [Chinese with English abstract].

Maekawa, K., Lo, N., Rose, H.A. & Matsumoto, T. 2003. The evauation of soil-burrowing cockroaches (Blattaria: Blaberidae) from wood-burrowing ancestors following an invasion of the latter from Asia into Australia. Proceeding of the Royal Society of London B 270: 1301–1307.

Martius, C., Hofer, H., Garcia, M.V.B., Rombke, J., Forster, B. & Hanagarth, W. 2004. Microclimate in agroforestry systems in central Amazonia: does canopy closure matter to soil organism? Agroforestry Systems 60: 291–304.

Menta, C. & Remelli, S. 2020. Soil health and arthropods: from complex system to worthwhile investigation. Insects 11: 54.

MMD. 2022. Weather data: Station Chuping, Perlis 1990–2021. Putrajaya: Malaysian Meterology Department.

R Development Core Team. 2022. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna.

http://www.R-project.org [5 December 2022].

Siriwut, W., Edgecombe, G.D., Sutcharit, C., Tongkerd, P. & Panha, S. 2016. A taxonomic review of the centipede genus Scolopendra Linnaeus, 1758 (Scolopendromorpha, Scolopendridae) in mainland Southeast Asia, with description of a new species from Laos. ZooKeys 590: 1–124.

Sulaimin, M.A.M. 2022. The effect of topography and undergrowth management towards soil fauna diversity in Matag Coconut Garden at Uitm Perlis. Final Year Project Report, Universiti Teknologi MARA.

Tang, B., Tang, M., Chen, C., Qui, P., Liu, Q., Wang, M. & Li, C. 2006. Characteristics of soil fauna community in the Dongjiao coconut plantation ecosystem in Hainan, China. Acta Ecologica Sinica 26: 26–32.

Triplehorn, C.A. & Johnson, N.F. 2005. Borror and Delong’s Introduction to the Study of Insects. 7th Edition. USA: Thomson.

Wardle, D.A., Yeates, G.W., Watson, R.N. & Nicholson, K.S. 1995. The detritus food-web and the diversity of soil fauna as indicators of disturbance regimes in agro-ecosystems. Plant and Soil 170(1): 35–43.

Work, T.T., Buddle, C.M., Korinus, L.M. & Spence, J.R. 2002. Pitfall trap size and capture of three taxa of litter-dwelling arthropods: Implications for biodiversity studies. Environmental Entomology 31(3): 438–448.

Zhou, Z.K., Zhang, S.Y., Jiang, N., Xiu, W.M., Zhao, J.N. & Yang, D.L. 2022. Effects of organic fertilizer incorporation practices on crops yield, soil quality, and soil fauna feeding activity in the wheat-maize rotation system. Frontiers in Environmental Science 10: 1058071.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.