Site quality for Araucaria angustifolia plantations at subtropical Cambisol is driven by soil organisms' assemblage and the litter and soil compartments

Abstract

Abstract Soil quality is a driver for biodiversity enrichment, soil fertility, and soil organic matter dynamics. Different soil quality levels at Araucaria angustifolia plantations may influence the soil organisms, and the interaction between litter and soil compartments by providing habitat and nutrients in different pathways. Our aim was to present a deeper view of the litter-soil compartments, and soil organisms community composition associated with three degrees of site quality (low-, average-, and high-quality sites), which reflect productivity levels, at the highlands of southern Brazil. The non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) grouped the influence of soil quality degrees in three groups considering the dissimilarities on the soil organisms among each other. The ordination of the soil organisms, richness, and Shannon’s diversity in each studied soil quality degree had a stress value of 0.08. The structural equation models indicated that the loss of soil quality showed a negative relationship among soil organisms’ assemblage, and soil-litter compartments. Our results highlighted the importance of considering soil biotic and abiotic attributes for achieving high productivity levels from A. angustifolia plantations within its natural occurrence range.