Soil Biodiversity Inventory Functions and Management

About this book

Language: English

Soil biodiversity emerged as a global agenda of research and management only since the last decade when the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UN-CBD) set out a programme of work on agricultural biodiversity. Agricultural development approaches targeting high levels of biodiversity, efficient of use of local resources and optimization of multiple services/functions (e.g. food/feed production, climate regulation, resilience and clean water supply) of agro-ecosystems started drawing more public support with the realization of several elements of unsustainability associated with conventional high-input agricultural systems. Development of soil food web mediated management of soil fertility, pathogens and pests assumes a priority task in view of increasing preference to organic food with willingness to pay a higher price for it, and emerging opportunities of payments for ecosystem services and climate change mitigation provided in programmes such as Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries launched by the United Nations (UN-REDD).

Loss of soil biodiversity is causally linked to unsustainability and, conversely, its enhancement to sustainability of agriculture and forestry. This proposition pursued by the tropical soil biology and fertility programme (now tropical soil biology and fertility institute of international centre of tropical agriculture: TSBF-CIAT on a smaller scale since the 1980s has been expanded as an International collaborative programme of seven countries viz., Brazil, Cote d'Ivoire, Indonesia, India, Kenya, Mexico and Uganda, with support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the global environment facility (GEF). The wider objective of the programme was to enhance awareness, knowledge and understanding of belowground diversity important to sustainable agriculture production in tropical landscapes by the demonstration of methods for conservation and management. The Programme was structured around the hypothesis that by appropriate management of above and below-ground biota, optimal conservation of biodiversity for national and global benefits can be achieved in mosaics of land uses at differing intensities of management, and furthermore result in simultaneous gains in sustainable agricultural production.

Soil Biodiversity is an outcome of the UNEP GEF-TSBF programme, is an attempt to address some research, education and management needs, so as to capitalize on the untapped potential of soil biodiversity in sustainable landscape management with particular reference to the Himalaya and the Western Ghats, the two global hotspots of above-ground biodiversity.

Contents

Preface

I. soil biodiversity: inventory and taxonomy
1. Soil invertebrates/J.M. Julka
2. Eathworms/J.M. Julka
3. Termites/M.L. Thakur
4. Millepedes/Kubra Bano
5. Myriapods/Vinod Khanna
6. Collembola/A.K. Hazra and G.P. Mandal
7. Mites/A.K. Sanyal
8. Mycorrhiza/Kritika Singh, R.K. Maikhuri and K.S. Rao
9. Legume nodulating bacteria/Manvika Sahgal and B.N. Johri

II. Soil biodiversity: distribution, functions and management
10. Improving soil health for sustainable agriculture in Himalaya/S.P. Sharma and P.D. Sharma
11. Soil quality and system productivity as influenced by long-term use of mineral fertilizers/S.P. Sharma, S.K. Subehia and P.K. Jain
12. Sustainable crop production and soil health in the north-western Himalayan region/R.D. Singh, A.K. Patra, R. Bhattacharya and B.N. Ghosh
13. Vermicomposting: an overview/V.K. Garg
14. Design and performance evaluation of vermicomposting systems for solid waste utilization/S. Gajalakshami and S.A. Abbasi
15. White grub complex of Uttarakhand and its management/D.K. Garg
16. Parasitic nematodes of Horticultural and forest crops and their management/M.L. Khan
17. Diversity and distribution of termites of Western and North-Western Himalaya/M.L. Thakur
18. Diversity and field ecology of termites of Western Ghats, India/M.L. Thakur
19. Abundance and diversity of soil fauna in degraded and rehabilitated ecosystems in Garhwal Himalaya/Tunira Bhadauria, Rohit Kumar and Pradeep Kumar
20. Soil fauna as influenced by land use in Indo-gangetic plains/Tunira Bhadauria
21. Soil biota following inoculation of consortia of microbes and mesofauna in coffee plantation system in South India/N.G. Kumar, A.N. Balakrishnan, P. Nirmala, M. Raghvendrakumar and K.S. Usha
22. Soil microbial diversity in rainfed agroecosystems/B. Venkateswarlu, S.P. Wani and C. Vineela
23. Mycorrhiza: disversity, distribution and functions/Shubhendu Chaudhuri
24. Diversity and significance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi/Varsha Tiwari and A.K. Sharma
25. Rhizosphere and ecological competence: key factors in selection fo bioinoculants/A. Pandey, P. Trivedi, S. Singh, B. Kumar and L.M.S. Palni
26. Productivity and interspecific interactions in intercropping systems/L. Li and F.S. Zhang
27. The role of mycorrhizal fungi and Macaranga denticulata symbiosis in maintaining productivity of rice in shifting cultivation in Thailand/Narit Yimyam, Somchit Youpensuk, Benjavan Rerkasem and Kanok Rerkaem
28. Homegarden as harbingers of belowground biodiversity in the humid tropics/B. Mohan Kumar
29. Indigenous pest management in the Himalaya/K.S. Rao, P.K. Maikhuri and K.G. Saxena

III. Synthesis
30. Inventory functions and management of soil biodiversity: an overview/K.S. Rao, U.M. Chandrashekara and K.G. Saxena

Index

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