Soil health and microbial diversity across land-use types: Evidence for agroecological management in peri-urban areas

Background
Land-use change profoundly influences soil microbial communities, yet its impacts on richness and diversity remain incompletely resolved across taxa.
Methods
Here, we characterized fungal and bacterial communities in soils from four contrasting land-use types—such as crop, reforested, agroforestry, and uncultivated land—located in the same pedoclimatic conditions, using high-throughput amplicon sequencing of Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) and 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. We quantified species richness and Shannon diversity and examined their relationships with key physicochemical parameters.
Results
Our results reveal that fungal and bacterial communities responded differently to land-use management. Fungal richness was highest in reforested soils, whereas bacterial richness was more uniformly distributed across land uses. Shannon diversity showed greater sensitivity than richness, indicating strong effects of evenness in structuring communities. Multivariate ordinations and correlation analyses further demonstrated that soil properties such as pH, total nitrogen, and cation exchange capacity were significant drivers of microbial community composition and diversity patterns.
Conclusions
Our study provides mechanistic insight into how land management shapes biodiversity and informs strategies for enhancing soil health and ecosystem resilience.