Soil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands - A Review

cris.virtual.author-orcid0000-0001-6091-4881
cris.virtual.author-orcid0000-0002-0060-3413
cris.virtual.author-orcid0000-0002-1636-8278
cris.virtual.author-orcid0000-0001-6752-3576
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cris.virtual.author-orcid0000-0003-3023-8709
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cris.virtualsource.author-orcidb7645c0b-26be-443e-9343-7c48fb2ca09d
cris.virtualsource.author-orcidd66d02f2-8469-496b-b98a-f2c6e149cccd
cris.virtualsource.author-orcidb18736e8-00eb-49bf-82ed-28d53f5aa69f
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cris.virtualsource.author-orcid7c465336-1d5f-4935-8883-9313286b446c
dc.abstract.enAfforestation can make an important contribution mitigating the effects of changing climate and provide structural and functional benefits. Afforestation also provides challenges for forest managers connected with past land-use history; therefore, there is an urgent need to summarize knowledge about such habitats and point out the gaps in knowledge for planning future studies. Although post-agricultural forests cover a large forest area in Europe, our understanding of the mechanisms governing the below-ground environment is still poor, especially when soil fauna is considered. In this study, we revised knowledge about the soil environment and the response of soil fauna to afforestation on former agricultural lands located in Europe based on research articles from the ISI Web of Science database. Data came from various but distinct locations, compared forests with different types of agricultural lands, and presented previous knowledge about soil chemistry and accompanying soil fauna communities. Finally, we selected 15 studies, investigating soil fauna communities on post-agricultural lands. The meta-analysis was based on response ratio (R) for available data, although in many cases the data were incomplete. Results indicated that post-agricultural forests differ from arable lands in reference to soil pH, but not for soil organic matter and carbon content. Different soil animal groups were represented by a similar number of studies: microfauna (seven studies) and mesofauna (nine), whereas macrofauna were represented by five studies. Meta-analysis revealed that the response of soil fauna to afforestation differed between soil fauna size classes. Additionally, in total, 18 tree species, 12 soil types, and 20 soil parameters were provided in the literature but only a few of them were presented in a single study. Future studies should include the impact of microclimate, detailed stand characteristics and soil conditions, which could help to clearly describe the impact of certain tree species growing on certain soil types. In future soil fauna ecological studies, the data should include mean values, standard deviation (SD) and/or standard effort of means (SE) for abundance, species richness, diversity indices and number of collected samples. Providing the above mentioned information will give the broad audience the opportunity to include data in future comparative analyses.
dc.affiliationWydział Leśny i Technologii Drewna
dc.affiliation.instituteKatedra Łowiectwa i Ochrony Lasu
dc.affiliation.instituteKatedra Urządzania Lasu
dc.contributor.authorMalica, Jacek
dc.contributor.authorUrbanowski, Cezary
dc.contributor.authorRączka, Grzegorz
dc.contributor.authorSkorupski, Maciej
dc.contributor.authorPers-Kamczyc, Emilia
dc.contributor.authorKamczyc, Jacek
dc.date.access2026-02-16
dc.date.accessioned2026-03-02T13:20:39Z
dc.date.available2026-03-02T13:20:39Z
dc.date.copyright2022-10-18
dc.date.issued2022
dc.description.accesstimeat_publication
dc.description.bibliographyil., bibliogr.
dc.description.financepublication_nocost
dc.description.financecost0,00
dc.description.if2,9
dc.description.number10
dc.description.points100
dc.description.versionfinal_published
dc.description.volume13
dc.identifier.doi10.3390/f13101713
dc.identifier.issn1999-4907
dc.identifier.urihttps://sciencerep.up.poznan.pl/handle/item/7566
dc.identifier.weblinkhttps://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/10/1713
dc.languageen
dc.relation.ispartofForests
dc.relation.pagesart. 1713
dc.rightsCC-BY
dc.sciencecloudnosend
dc.share.typeOPEN_JOURNAL
dc.subject.enafforestation
dc.subject.enedaphon
dc.subject.ensoil chemistry
dc.subject.ensoil biodiversity
dc.subject.enland use
dc.subject.entree species
dc.subtypeReviewArticle
dc.titleSoil Environment and Fauna Communities in Europe after Afforestation of Post-Agricultural Lands - A Review
dc.title.volumeSpecial Issue Mite Communities in Forest Ecosystems: Role, Ecology and Diversity
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typePublication