Arable fields as potential reservoirs of biodiversity: Earthworm populations increase in new leys

Miranda T Prendergast-Miller; David T Jones; Despina Berdeni; Susannah Bird; Pippa J Chapman; Leslie Firbank; Richard Grayson; Thorunn Helgason; Joseph Holden; Martin Lappage; Jonathan Leake; Mark E Hodson

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147880

Arable fields as potential reservoirs of biodiversity: Earthworm populations increase in new leys

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Oct 1:789:147880. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147880. Epub 2021 May 21.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, Wentworth Way, York YO10 5NG, UK; Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK. Electronic address: miranda.prendergast-miller@northumbria.ac.uk.
² Life Sciences Department, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK.
³ The University of Sheffield, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK; Crop Physiology, ADAS Gleadthorpe, Meden Vale, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire NG20 9PD, UK.
⁴ Department of Biology, University of York, Wentworth Way, YO10 5DD, UK.
⁵ water@leeds, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
⁶ water@leeds, School of Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
⁷ The University of Sheffield, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK.
⁸ Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, Wentworth Way, York YO10 5NG, UK.

PMID: 34058593
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147880

Abstract

Managing soil to support biodiversity is important to sustain the ecosystem services provided by soils upon which society depends. There is increasing evidence that functional diversity of soil biota is important for ecosystem services, and has been degraded by intensive agriculture. Importantly, the spatial distribution of reservoirs of soil biota in and surrounding arable fields is poorly understood. In a field experiment, grass-clover ley strips were introduced into four arable fields which had been under continuous intensive/conventional arable rotation for more than 10 years. Earthworm communities in arable fields and newly established grass-clover leys, as well as field boundary land uses (hedgerows and grassy field margins), were monitored over 2 years after arable-to-ley conversions. Within 2 years, earthworm abundance in new leys was 732 ± 244 earthworms m^-2, similar to that in field margin soils (619 ± 355 earthworms m^-2 yr^-1) and four times higher than in adjacent arable soil (185 ± 132 earthworms m^-2). Relative to the arable soils, earthworm abundance under the new leys showed changes in community composition, structure and functional group, which were particularly associated with an increase in anecic earthworms; thus new leys became more similar to grassy field margins. Earthworm abundance was similar in new leys that were either connected to biodiversity reservoirs i.e. field margins and hedgerows, or not (installed earthworm barriers). This suggests that, for earthworm communities in typical arable fields, biodiversity reservoirs in adjacent field margins and hedgerows may not be critical for earthworm populations to increase. We conclude that the increase in earthworm abundance in the new leys observed over 2 years was driven by recruitment from the existing residual population in arable soils. Therefore, arable soils are also potential reservoirs of biodiversity.

Keywords: Agroecosystems; Dispersal; Farm hedgerow; Field margins; Lumbricidae; Tillage.

MeSH terms

Agriculture
Animals
Biodiversity
Ecosystem
Oligochaeta*
Soil

Substances

Soil