Understanding the nuances of soil health is more important than ever to improve the quality and sustainability of agroecosystems. However, it is poorly understood how the variety of metrics currently in use to evaluate soil health relate to each other, and in what situations their use is not sensitive enough to indicate environmental changes. The use of faunal co‐occurrence networks is a novel, potentially valuable tool that has hitherto received little attention in the context of soil health. Here, we used a meadow land‐use intensity gradient to compare the response of a number of soil community metrics, including chemical and ecological indicators as well as faunal co‐occurrence network parameters. Our findings indicate that the examined metrics displayed distinct, often contrasting patterns to one another, and that network analysis detected patterns that strongly aligned with the land‐use effects. This pattern was qualitatively different from patterns arising from traditionally used metrics. The soils with conventional farming, that is, the least regenerative land‐use, generally scored well in traditionally used metrics, including C:N ratio, faunal abundance and the ratio of Acari to Collembola. Regenerative farming was comparable with conventional farming in all conventional metrics—however, network analysis revealed that the soil faunal communities under regenerative farming had the highest species connectivity out of all research areas potentially due to grazing increasing the connectivity of faunal networks. Overall, these results suggest that network analyses are best suited to capture subtle land‐use intensity differences while traditional metrics performed well in big changes. While more research is needed to better interpret soil faunal co‐occurrence networks, our findings imply that it could be a useful method to provide further insight in aspects of soil health.

中文翻译：

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揭示土壤动物群在泥炭草甸恢复土壤健康评估中的作用的指标比较


了解土壤健康的细微差别对于提高农业生态系统的质量和可持续性比以往任何时候都更加重要。然而，目前用于评估土壤健康的各种指标如何相互关联，以及在什么情况下它们的使用不够敏感，无法表明环境变化，人们知之甚少。使用动物共生网络是一种新颖的、可能有价值的工具，迄今为止在土壤健康的背景下很少受到关注。在这里，我们使用草地利用强度梯度来比较许多土壤群落指标的响应，包括化学和生态指标以及动物共生网络参数。我们的研究结果表明，检查的指标显示出不同的、经常相互对比的模式，并且网络分析检测到与土地利用效应高度一致的模式。此模式与传统使用的指标产生的模式有质的不同。采用传统耕作的土壤，即再生土地利用最少的土壤，通常在传统使用的指标上得分很高，包括 C：N 比、动物群落丰度以及 Acari 与 Collembola 的比率。再生农业在所有常规指标上都与传统农业相当——然而，网络分析显示，在所有研究领域中，再生农业下的土壤动物群落具有最高的物种连通性，这可能是由于放牧增加了动物网络的连通性。总体而言，这些结果表明，网络分析最适合捕捉细微的土地利用强度差异，而传统指标在重大变化中表现良好。 虽然需要更多的研究来更好地解释土壤动物共生网络，但我们的研究结果表明，这可能是一种有用的方法，可以进一步了解土壤健康的各个方面。