Biodiversity and abundance of the edaphic macrofauna in two animal husbandry systems in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba

Objective: To determine the biodiversity and abundance indexes of the edaphic macrofauna in two animal husbandry systems in the Yaguajay municipality, Sancti Spiritus province, Cuba. Materials and Methods: A study was conducted in areas of a Basic Unit of Cooperative Production, belonging to the Animal Husbandry Enterprise Obdulio Morales, from the Yaguajay municipality, in the Sancti Spiritus province, Cuba. A silvopastoral system and a natural pastureland, which had been exploited for more than 10 years, were evaluated, distributed in a complete randomized design, with three repetitions per treatment. The macrofauna was sampled during two years in the rainy and dry season in the litter and at the depths 0-10; 10-20 and 20-30 cm, according to the methodology of the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility International Research Program. The macrofauna was identified to the order level, and Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric analysis with the software InfoStat [R]. Results: A total of 1 207 individuals were collected, from which 840 corresponded to the silvopastoral system and 367 to the system of natural pastures. In both systems coleopterans prevailed (133 and 313 individuals for the pastureland and the silvopastoral system, respectively), followed by oligochaetes (78 and 144 individuals, respectively). When analyzing the ecological indexes, no marked difference was found between the evaluated systems. Conclusions: The silvopastoral system provides the community of macroinvertebrates with favorable conditions for the optimum development of the edaphic macrofauna. In this system higher quantity and diversity of individuals were found. Keywords: biota, Choleoptera, soil fertility, Oligochaeta