Effects of soil erosion on agro-ecosystem services and soil functions: A multidisciplinary study in nineteen organically farmed European and Turkish vineyards

PubMedID: 29975888This multidisciplinary research work evaluated the effects of soil erosion on grape yield and quality and on different soil functions, namely water and nutrient supply, carbon sequestration, organic matter recycling, and soil biodiversity, with the aim to understand the causes of soil malfunctioning and work out a proper strategy of soil remediation. Degraded areas in nineteen organically farmed European and Turkish vineyards resulted in producing significantly lower amounts of grapes and excessive concentrations of sugar. Plants suffered from decreased water nutrition, due to shallower rooting depth, compaction, and reduced available water capacity, lower chemical fertility, as total nitrogen and cation exchange capacity, and higher concentration of carbonates. Carbon storage and organic matter recycling were also depressed. The general trend of soil enzyme activity mainly followed organic matter stock. Specific enzymatic activities suggested that in degraded soils, alongside a general slowdown in organic matter cycling, there was a greater reduction in decomposition capacity of the most recalcitrant forms. The abundance of Acari Oribatida and Collembola resulted the most sensitive indicator of soil degradation among the considered microarthropods. No clear difference in overall microbial richness and evenness were observed. All indices were relatively high and indicative of rich occurrence of many and rare microbial species. Dice cluster analyses indicated slight qualitative differences in Eubacterial and fungal community compositions in rhizosphere soil and roots in degraded soils. This multidisciplinary study indicates that the loss of soil fertility caused by excessive earth movement before planting, or accelerated erosion, mainly affects water nutrition and chemical fertility. Biological soil fertility is also reduced, in particular the ability of biota to decompose organic matter, while biodiversity is less affected, probably because of the organic management. Therefore, the restoration of the eroded soils requires site-specific and intensive treatments, including accurately chosen organic matrices for fertilization, privileging the most easily decomposable. Restoring soil fertility in depth, however, remain an open question, which needs further investigation. © 2018 Elsevier LtdErzincan Üniversitesi Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale School of Medicine European Commission Seventh Framework ProgrammeThe research work was carried out in the framework of the EU project RESOLVE (Restoring optimal Soil functionality in degraded areas within organic vineyards), supported by transnational funding bodies, being partners of the FP7 ERA -net project, CORE Organic Plus , and the cofound from the European Commission. Authors express their gratitude to the farms that hosted the field trials. Authors thank all the people who help during field-work and laboratory analysis, in particular Maria Fantappiè, Romina Lorenzetti, Silvia Landi, Silvia Guidi, Donatella Goggioli, Paolo Storchi and Marco Leprini of CREA (Italy) and Benjamin Joubard, David Granger, Guillaume Darrieutort and all the students involved in field work in French sites. Appendix