Impact of no-tillage versus conventional maize plantation on soil mesofauna with and without the use of a lambda-cyhalothrin based insecticide : A terrestrial model ecosystem experiment

Different soil management in crop cultures like maize can produce a variety of effects on soil fauna. Conventional cropping includes soil tillage, promoting organic matter losses and destruction of soil structure, whereas no-tillage cropping includes a herbicide application which can potentially affect soil fauna. In both management systems, insecticides are often used, such as pyrethroid insecticides, to prevent insect pests. Understanding the impact of these different cropping systems in their different phases on soil mesofauna and investigating the ability of soil communities to recover may provide important information to select cropping strategies which are more protective of soil biodiversity. With this aim, a terrestrial model ecosystem experiment was performed over eighty-nine days. The test treatments, all including maize, were: undisturbed soil; conventional tillage; conventional tillage with insecticide; no-tillage soil with herbicide; no-tillage soil with herbicide and insecticide. In each TME, soil samples from 0 to 5 and 5-10 cm of the top layer were collected from which collembolans and mites were identified to species, genus or subfamily level, and enchytraeid abundance was determined. Soil tillage did not affect soil communities, but insecticide application did. For collembolans and enchytraeids, the impact of the insecticide was independent of soil management, but for mites, insecticide impact was longer in conventional tillage than in no-tillage system. Changes on collembolan abundance, in general, did not promote changes in mean community trait values and functional diversity. Data suggest that no-tillage management is more protective to soil fauna than conventional tillage.Peer reviewe