Cover crops influence aboveground and belowground invertebrates in farmlands

2025 · doi:10.32942/x27p93
preprint OA: closed CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0
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Abstract

1. Maintaining vegetation diversity through cover crops could counteract the decreasing soil carbon and biodiversity in intensive monoculture farming, but its impacts on fauna have rarely been quantified. 2. To investigate how cover crops influence the abundance and trophic structure of invertebrates, or inorganic N (proxy of soil functioning), barley (Hordeum vulgare) was grown with up to eight undersown cover crops. Soil fauna (nematodes, enchytraeids and earthworms), slugs, and arthropods living on soil surface, vegetation, and barley were sampled, and soil inorganic N availability measured. 3. Cover crops increased the abundance of aboveground and belowground invertebrates compared to barley monoculture. The proportion of predatory arthropods increased, suggesting that cover crops improved the potential for biological control. 4. Cover crop functional traits (N2-fixation and deep roots) had selective effects. For example, legumes increased soil inorganic N availability and the abundance of aboveground herbivores, while deep-rooted species benefited earthworms. The species richness of cover crops did not affect invertebrates or soil N. 5. Synthesis and applications: Our results suggest that cover crops can improve agroecosystem diversity and functioning, and that significant effects on invertebrate-mediated ecosystem functions such as biological control can already be achieved at low levels of added vegetation diversity.
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This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint. You must log in to post a comment. There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article. This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint. Add a Comment You must log in to post a comment. Comments There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article. 1. Maintaining vegetation diversity through cover crops could counteract the decreasing soil carbon and biodiversity in intensive monoculture farming, but its impacts on fauna have rarely been quantified. 2. To investigate how cover crops influence the abundance and trophic structure of invertebrates, or inorganic N (proxy of soil functioning), barley (Hordeum vulgare) was grown with up to eight undersown cover crops. Soil fauna (nematodes, enchytraeids and earthworms), slugs, and arthropods living on soil surface, vegetation, and barley were sampled, and soil inorganic N availability measured. 3. Cover crops increased the abundance of aboveground and belowground invertebrates compared to barley monoculture. The proportion of predatory arthropods increased, suggesting that cover crops improved the potential for biological control. 4. Cover crop functional traits (N2-fixation and deep roots) had selective effects. For example, legumes increased soil inorganic N availability and the abundance of aboveground herbivores, while deep-rooted species benefited earthworms. The species richness of cover crops did not affect invertebrates or soil N. 5. Synthesis and applications: Our results suggest that cover crops can improve agroecosystem diversity and functioning, and that significant effects on invertebrate-mediated ecosystem functions such as biological control can already be achieved at low levels of added vegetation diversity. https://doi.org/10.32942/X27P93 Agriculture, Biodiversity, Life Sciences agroecosystem, biological control, cover crop, invertebrate, monoculture, soil fauna, soil N, vegetation diversity Published: 2025-07-25 00:05 Last Updated: 2025-07-25 00:05 CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Conflict of interest statement: None Data and Code Availability Statement: Data will be made publicly available in Dryad upon manuscript acceptance. Language: English

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License: CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0