Soil physicochemical property and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
resilience to degradation and deforestation of a dry evergreen
Afromontane forest in central Ethiopia
Abstract
We investigated the soil physicochemical property and arbuscular
mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) resilience to degradation and deforestation of
the Chilimo dry evergreen Afromontane forest. Topsoil (1-10cm)
physicochemical property was determined across four land uses, viz.
natural forest (NF), shrubland (ShL), cropland (CrL), and grazing land
(GrL). AMF spore abundance (SA) and AMF infectivity of these land uses
were also determined. One-way ANOVA results indicated that most soil
physicochemical variables were significantly affected by land-use
change. According to the nonmetric multidiamentiaonal scaling ordination
result, soil physicochemical property was found to be resilient to
degradation (NF-ShL conversation) but not deforestation (NF-CrL or
NF-GrL conversions) of Chilimo forest. Whereas SA was found to be
resilient to both the degradation and deforestation, infectivity was
resilient only to NF-CrL conversion. Although our results did not show a
similar pattern in soil property, SA and AMF infectivity resilience due
to Chilimo forest degradation and deforestation, both the soil
physicochemical property and AMF infectivity were found to be not
resilient to NF conversion to GrL. Hence, based on our results, it can
be concluded that AMF inoculation could be more beneficial to NF
restoration if the planting sites are in GrL. However, in the future,
the AMF community composition of these four land uses should be
determined morphologically and molecularly from field soil and trap
culture so that AMF resilience to DAF deforestation and degradation is
better understood.