Published in Scientific Papers. Series A. Agronomy, Vol. LXIV, Issue 1
Written by Luiza-Silvia CHIRIAC, Dumitru MURARIU
Agricultural systems have a great diversity of functional traits of plants and soil biota. Invertebrates play a key role in determining soil sustainability and crop health. Many species of invertebrates are important in soil fertility and play a vital role in the production and maintenance of healthy soils. Soil fauna have several roles in the functioning of ecosystems: they influence plant productivity, regulate nutrient mineralization, allow decomposition and act as a buffer. The functional groups of invertebrates in relation to plants are reliable bioindicators, as they provide information on soil quality, ecological services and the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole. The conceptual approach of plant-soil interaction research has shifted from plant strategies to more quantitative approaches using plant-specific functional traits and soil food web characteristics. Because plants use nutrients in inorganic form, they depend on the rate of mineralization in the soil. It has often been assumed that nutrient mineralization is mainly the result of soil microflora activity. The appearance of soil fauna population increases the release of nutrients by fragmenting waste, grazing microflora.
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