Impact of silvopastoral system on the soil physicochemical properties in China: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Abstract Silvopastoral system has been proposed as a sustainable management system with both ecological and economic benefits compared with open pasture. However, little research compared the ecological impact of silvopastoral system compared with pure forest. Therefore, this study focused on the ecological benefits of silvopastoral system on the soil physicochemical properties under different construction modes and construction periods in China based on meta-analysis. From 29 references we extracted a total of 492 paired data that were used for the meta-analysis. Results showed that silvopastoral system could improve soil physical properties by decreasing soil bulk density and soil pH value. However, no consensus conclusion could be found on soil water content except significant increase in surface soil water content in southern China. Silvopastoral system significantly improved the top-soil nutrient contents. Construction of silvopastoral system significantly increased soil available nitrogen contents of all three soil depths and soil available phosphorus content of 0-40cm soil depth. However, no significant effect could be found for soil available potassium content. Silvopastoral system significantly improved soil organic matter content for all three soil depths. Sub-group analysis showed that 2–3 years after construction of silvopastoral system maximally improved soil available nitrogen and phosphorus contents, while soil available potassium content decreased with the construction period. Our results showed that short-term period construction of silvopastoral systems are effective practices to increase soil nutrient content especially in the temperate climate zone. However, we still need long-term monitoring experiments to verify the long-term ecological effect of silvopastoral system.