Soil pollution represents a threat to soil biodiversity and to soil and human health. However, many ecotoxicological issues, such as the impact of heavy metal pollution on the soil mite community and its spatial distribution in areas with complex environmental factors, are not fully understood. Here, an investigation was conducted in an arable area (about 11 km2) enclosed by surrounding mountains. The study area was contaminated with potentially toxic metals derived from copper smelting that was functioning for over 10 years. The area comprised four land use types: woodlands, dry fields, paddy fields, and wastelands, and was divided into 141 study sites each with an area of 6.25 ha. The soil metal (Cu, Zn, Pb, and Cd) contents, pH, and organic matter were determined and their distributions were established. Furthermore, soil mite (Acari) community properties (species richness, individual abundance, and Shannon-Wiener diversity index) were determined, and the distributions of total species number and abundance were ascertained. Soil metal pollution strongly reduced soil mite community, but the effects depended on mite groups or species and their sensitivity to different metals as well as land use types. CANOCO analysis revealed that the order Oribatida was more highly correlated with soil metal contents, whereas the other three orders responded to soil metal contents depending on land use types, mite properties, or metals. SADIE method indicated that the coordinate relationship between mite species number and metal concentration was more negative (4-25% of the study sites) than positive (4-12%). The metal pollution levels in the soil were evaluated by single and integrated pollution and ecological risk indices.
Keywords: Anthropogenic activity; Community structure property; Cu/Zn/Pb/Cd contamination; Local distribution; Pollution index and assessment; Soil mesofauna; Soil property.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.