Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands—A Review
Afforestation can make an important contribution mitigating the effects of changing climate and provide structural and functional benefits. Afforestation also provides challenges for forest managers connected with past land-use history; therefore, there is an urgent need to summarize knowledge about...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-10-01
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| Series: | Forests |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/10/1713 |
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| author | Jacek Malica Cezary K. Urbanowski Grzegorz Rączka Maciej Skorupski Emilia Pers-Kamczyc Jacek Kamczyc |
| author_facet | Jacek Malica Cezary K. Urbanowski Grzegorz Rączka Maciej Skorupski Emilia Pers-Kamczyc Jacek Kamczyc |
| author_sort | Jacek Malica |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Afforestation can make an important contribution mitigating the effects of changing climate and provide structural and functional benefits. Afforestation also provides challenges for forest managers connected with past land-use history; therefore, there is an urgent need to summarize knowledge about such habitats and point out the gaps in knowledge for planning future studies. Although post-agricultural forests cover a large forest area in Europe, our understanding of the mechanisms governing the below-ground environment is still poor, especially when soil fauna is considered. In this study, we revised knowledge about the soil environment and the response of soil fauna to afforestation on former agricultural lands located in Europe based on research articles from the ISI Web of Science database. Data came from various but distinct locations, compared forests with different types of agricultural lands, and presented previous knowledge about soil chemistry and accompanying soil fauna communities. Finally, we selected 15 studies, investigating soil fauna communities on post-agricultural lands. The meta-analysis was based on response ratio (R) for available data, although in many cases the data were incomplete. Results indicated that post-agricultural forests differ from arable lands in reference to soil pH, but not for soil organic matter and carbon content. Different soil animal groups were represented by a similar number of studies: microfauna (seven studies) and mesofauna (nine), whereas macrofauna were represented by five studies. Meta-analysis revealed that the response of soil fauna to afforestation differed between soil fauna size classes. Additionally, in total, 18 tree species, 12 soil types, and 20 soil parameters were provided in the literature but only a few of them were presented in a single study. Future studies should include the impact of microclimate, detailed stand characteristics and soil conditions, which could help to clearly describe the impact of certain tree species growing on certain soil types. In future soil fauna ecological studies, the data should include mean values, standard deviation (SD) and/or standard effort of means (SE) for abundance, species richness, diversity indices and number of collected samples. Providing the above mentioned information will give the broad audience the opportunity to include data in future comparative analyses. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T12:18:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ab6097ac599b4e87accc944bcf2938b9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1999-4907 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T12:18:11Z |
| publishDate | 2022-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Forests |
| spelling | doaj.art-ab6097ac599b4e87accc944bcf2938b92023-11-30T22:44:34ZengMDPI AGForests1999-49072022-10-011310171310.3390/f13101713Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands—A ReviewJacek Malica0Cezary K. Urbanowski1Grzegorz Rączka2Maciej Skorupski3Emilia Pers-Kamczyc4Jacek Kamczyc5Department of Game Management and Forest Protection, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, 71D Wojska Polskiego Str., 60-625 Poznań, PolandDepartment of Game Management and Forest Protection, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, 71D Wojska Polskiego Str., 60-625 Poznań, PolandDepartment of Forest Management Planning, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, 71C Wojska Polskiego Str., 60-625 Poznań, PolandDepartment of Game Management and Forest Protection, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, 71D Wojska Polskiego Str., 60-625 Poznań, PolandDepartment of Genetics and Environmental Interactions, Institute of Dendrology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 5 Parkowa Str., 62-035 Kórnik, PolandDepartment of Game Management and Forest Protection, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, 71D Wojska Polskiego Str., 60-625 Poznań, PolandAfforestation can make an important contribution mitigating the effects of changing climate and provide structural and functional benefits. Afforestation also provides challenges for forest managers connected with past land-use history; therefore, there is an urgent need to summarize knowledge about such habitats and point out the gaps in knowledge for planning future studies. Although post-agricultural forests cover a large forest area in Europe, our understanding of the mechanisms governing the below-ground environment is still poor, especially when soil fauna is considered. In this study, we revised knowledge about the soil environment and the response of soil fauna to afforestation on former agricultural lands located in Europe based on research articles from the ISI Web of Science database. Data came from various but distinct locations, compared forests with different types of agricultural lands, and presented previous knowledge about soil chemistry and accompanying soil fauna communities. Finally, we selected 15 studies, investigating soil fauna communities on post-agricultural lands. The meta-analysis was based on response ratio (R) for available data, although in many cases the data were incomplete. Results indicated that post-agricultural forests differ from arable lands in reference to soil pH, but not for soil organic matter and carbon content. Different soil animal groups were represented by a similar number of studies: microfauna (seven studies) and mesofauna (nine), whereas macrofauna were represented by five studies. Meta-analysis revealed that the response of soil fauna to afforestation differed between soil fauna size classes. Additionally, in total, 18 tree species, 12 soil types, and 20 soil parameters were provided in the literature but only a few of them were presented in a single study. Future studies should include the impact of microclimate, detailed stand characteristics and soil conditions, which could help to clearly describe the impact of certain tree species growing on certain soil types. In future soil fauna ecological studies, the data should include mean values, standard deviation (SD) and/or standard effort of means (SE) for abundance, species richness, diversity indices and number of collected samples. Providing the above mentioned information will give the broad audience the opportunity to include data in future comparative analyses.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/10/1713afforestationedaphonsoil chemistrysoil biodiversityland usetree species |
| spellingShingle | Jacek Malica Cezary K. Urbanowski Grzegorz Rączka Maciej Skorupski Emilia Pers-Kamczyc Jacek Kamczyc Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands—A Review Forests afforestation edaphon soil chemistry soil biodiversity land use tree species |
| title | Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands—A Review |
| title_full | Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands—A Review |
| title_fullStr | Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands—A Review |
| title_full_unstemmed | Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands—A Review |
| title_short | Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands—A Review |
| title_sort | soil environment and fauna communities in europe after afforestation of post agricultural lands a review |
| topic | afforestation edaphon soil chemistry soil biodiversity land use tree species |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/10/1713 |
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