ABSTRACT
The soil conservation in agriculture may contribute to productivity and sustainable production. The objective was to measure the mass loss rate of cellulose decomposition process in agriculture systems, in different cultivation times (more than 30 years vs. less than 10 years) considering forest in conservation unit and close anthropic forest as control systems. We used substrate bags of two mesh sizes (0.5 mm vs. 10 mm) in soil surface for 30, 60 and 90 days in all systems (agriculture systems vs. close anthropic forest and forest in conservation unit). Cellulose decomposition ecosystem service decreased by a quarter (effect size range ± -22 to -26%) in the studied agriculture systems compared to forests systems, highlighting the cotton strip breakdown process as a good ecological indicator. High species richness and plant strata in forest systems increase the mass loss compared to agriculture systems. The difference between 10 and 30 year of agriculture systems ranges from 3% (total decomposition) to 7% (microbial decomposition), lower in 30-year systems. Also, forest fragments near agriculture systems are refuge for detritivore macrofauna and may retain the ecosystem service on these productive areas.
Keywords
Cellulose breakdown; Cotton strips decomposition; Standardized methods
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Source: Authors (2023). In where: The study systems at land use distribution areas studied (a). Forest system in conservation unit are the yellow circles, close forest system are the black circles and agriculture system are the white (a, b and c). In the agriculture system, the areas with less than 10 years represented by 1 (b) and with more than 30 years are circles are represented by 2 (c). Also, the simplified experimental design between systems, areas, points, and pseudo-replicas at points (d).
Source: Authors (2023). In where: Lines represent the smoothers of variables and systems the 95% confidence intervals of the models.
Source: Authors (2023). In where: Lines represent the smoothers of variables and systems the 95% confidence intervals of the models.
Source: Authors (2023). In where: Effect size and direction of cotton strip mass loss in the two agriculture systems (more than 30 years vs. less than 10 years) between bag meshes (coarse and fine) expressed as log-ratios between treatments (agriculture system) and respective controls, forest in conservation unit (a) and close forest (b); Circles are means, and whiskers denote upper and lower bounds of 95% nonparametric bootstrapped confidence intervals. Closed circles will represent intervals that do reject the null hypothesis (i.e., do not contain the value of 0) and open circles will represent intervals that do not reject the null hypothesis.