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Forests
Special Issues
Soil Faunal Diversity and Ecological Functions in Forest Ecosystems
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Soil Faunal Diversity and Ecological Functions in Forest Ecosystems

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Soil".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2023) | Viewed by 2624

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Pengfei Wu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu, China
Interests: soil faunal diversity, functions, and spatio-temporal distribution; responses to climate changes; forest; alpine meadow ecosystems; Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
Prof. Dr. Manqiang Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Soil Ecology Lab, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China
Interests: soil biodiversity; soil food web; sustainable land use; functional trait; multifunctionality

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forests, as one of the most key vegetations types on earth, play an important role in climate mitigation, water purification, soil health maintenance, biodiversity conservation and biosphere stability. Especially under the ongoing global change, including climate change, land-use change, eutrophication, etc., the roles of forests in terrestrial biodiversity protection and the global biogeochemical cycle are being increasingly recognized. Soil fauna, including macrofauna, mesofauna, and microfauna, are irreplaceable components of soil biodiversity or soil food web, in which the biotic interactions drive multiple ecosystem processes such as decomposition and nutrient cycling as well as forest productivity across temporal and spatial scales. Global changes induced by human activities have threatened soil fauna diversity and functions in forest ecosystems, but the determinant factors of responses, functions, and managements remain unclear. Therefore, a broad scope of topics are welcomed, including the spatiotemporal distribution of soil fauna, their responses to climate change and anthropogenic factors, their interactions with plant aboveground subsystems, as well as their multiple ecosystem functions (e.g., element cycling, soil restoration and forest productivity). Articles in the form of reviews, research papers, briefs, and methods are acceptable. The focus of this Special Issue of Forests is on soil faunal diversity and functions in forest ecosystems.

Prof. Dr. Pengfei Wu 
Prof. Dr. Manqiang Liu 
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soil fauna
  • forest ecosystems
  • ecological functions
  • global change
  • forest management
  • nutrient cycling

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 1473 KiB  
Article
Evaluating the Impact of Long-Term Land Use Change and Age since Disturbance on Soil Faunal Diversity
by Felicity Victoria Crotty, Umran Akkan Demirer, Stuart Lee Norris, Wei Liu and Philip James Murray
Forests 2023, 14(9), 1882; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14091882 - 16 Sep 2023
Viewed by 1017
Abstract
Soil organisms are the biological drivers of processes and functions that maintain soil properties and ecosystem services. Soil fauna contribute to nutrient turnover, decomposition and other important biogeochemical processes. This investigation assessed the diversity and abundance of soil arthropods (0.1–4 mm) along a [...] Read more.
Soil organisms are the biological drivers of processes and functions that maintain soil properties and ecosystem services. Soil fauna contribute to nutrient turnover, decomposition and other important biogeochemical processes. This investigation assessed the diversity and abundance of soil arthropods (0.1–4 mm) along a chronosequence of land use types covering a relatively small geographical distance but with the same underlying soil type and climatic conditions. The compared habitats and the approximate ages since anthropogenic disturbance were ancient woodland (>200 y), old woodland (<200 y), unimproved semi-natural grassland (>50 y), willow/poplar coppice (>30 y), unimproved permanent pasture (<20 y), improved permanent pasture (<10 y), and recently grazed and reseeded grassland (>2 y), and the soil types of all habitats were the same within a 5 km radius. Land use type and age since anthropogenic disturbance significantly (p < 0.05) influenced the community composition of soil fauna, with richer arthropod communities found in woodlands compared with recently managed grassland. This study has confirmed a significant effect of land use type and age since disturbance on soil faunal diversity and community structure. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Faunal Diversity and Ecological Functions in Forest Ecosystems)
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13 pages, 2467 KiB  
Article
Soil Organic Carbon and pH Dominate the Effects of Nitrogen Addition on Soil Microarthropods in a Poplar Plantation in Coastal Eastern China
by Zhiwei Ge, Hanran Xiao, Yanbing Pang, Sili Peng, Lingfeng Mao and Honghua Ruan
Forests 2023, 14(5), 880; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14050880 - 25 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1122
Abstract
Soil biodiversity and fuction have been altered by the increasing levels of nitrogen as a result of fertilization and atmospheric deposition. Although soil microarthropods are a crucial component of soil biodiversity and play a key role in a diverse range of soil functions, [...] Read more.
Soil biodiversity and fuction have been altered by the increasing levels of nitrogen as a result of fertilization and atmospheric deposition. Although soil microarthropods are a crucial component of soil biodiversity and play a key role in a diverse range of soil functions, our understanding of the mechanisms by which N addition affects them remains limited. Using a long-term nitrogen addition experiment (2012–2016) in poplar plantations (Populus deltoides L. CL‘35′) located along the coast of Yellow Sea Forest Park in northern Jiangsu, eastern China (32°52′ N and 120°49′ E), where the soil was entisols, we examined the response of soil microarthropods across three soil depths (0–15 cm, 15–25 cm, 25–40 cm) to five N input levels (0, 5, 10, 15, 30 g N m−2 year−1) over four seasons. We found that the number of microarthropods per unit area initially grew and then dropped as more nitrogen was added to soils. Soil organic carbon (positive correlation, R2 = 0.53) and pH (negative correlation, R2 = 0.19) were the two dominant factors driving the effects of nitrogen addition on soil microarthropod densities at all soil depths. These results suggest that nitrogen input enhances the density of soil microarthropods via the increase in fresh organic matter input. However, the increase in organic matter may be offset by an indirect increase in acidity under high levels of N addition, providing one possible explanation for the reduced density of microarthropods in heavily fertilized soils.71 Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Faunal Diversity and Ecological Functions in Forest Ecosystems)
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