Relationships between soil fauna and rainfall change in desert steppe: A review

Ren Tao Liu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Under the background of global climate change, the events of extreme rainfall occur frequently. To summarize the relationships between soil faunal diversity and rainfall change and the response mechanisms of soil fauna helps understand the affecting process of global change on the structure and function of soil ecosystem, and has scientific significance in clarifying the responses of terrestrial ecosystem to global change. Desert steppe ecosystem is very fragile and sensitive to climate change, but the studies on the effects of rainfall change on the soil faunal diversity are fewer, which constrain the rational management and sustainable utilization of the ecosystem. This paper summarized the relationships between soil fauna and rainfall change from the aspects of aboveground, ground, and underground, and gave some suggestions for the future studies on the responses of soil fauna to rainfall change in desert steppe. Previous studies have showed that there is a direct effect of rainfall change on the soil faunal community structure. Soil fauna has strong response to rainfall change, and some soil faunal groups can be regarded as an important indicator for the rainfall change. It is suggested that for the desert steppe ecosystem, future studies should be focused on the long-term effect of rainfall change on soil fauna, the adaptation ways of soil fauna to rainfall change, the sensitivity of some soil faunal groups to soil water content, and the feedback relationships between soil fauna and climate change.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)760-765
Number of pages6
JournalChinese Journal of Ecology
Volume31
Issue number3
StatePublished - Mar 2012
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Desert steppe
  • Global change
  • Rainfall change
  • Soil fauna

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