Sustainable Alternative Land Management Strategies and Their Impacts on Soil Arthropod Diversity

Soil arthropods are groups of animals without backbones such as isopods, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, centipedes, millipedes, springtails, ants, beetles, and their relatives that spend either a part or the entire developmental stage (eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults) in the soil. They provide enormous ecosystem services and contribute immeasurably to the ecological welfare of the soil ecosystem. They boost the maintenance of soil structure by providing resistance to physical soil degradation, nutrient cycling, carbon seizure, and transformation of organic pollutants. Some of these soil arthropods enforce compliance of other soil organisms with soil carrying capacity, facilitate microbial decomposition, and suppress pests and diseases. They are among the invertebrate organisms that are saddled with the responsibilities of rehabilitating and maintaining soil health that is impaired by traditional land use practices and contributes to ecosystem functioning. Unfortunately, traditional land uses such as clean clearing of farmlands, use of chemicals against pests, soil enrichment, tilling of soil, monocropping, and other crude practices are detrimental to soil arthropods because the soil health is threatened. Sustainable environmental stakeholders have suggested alternative land management strategies such as organic farming, which encompasses agroforestry, cover cropping, crop rotation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, and others to ameliorate the environmental impacts of traditional farming practices. The aim of this chapter is to highlight the importance of soil arthropods in soil ecosystem functioning and sustainability. It will also discuss common traditional land use practices and alternative land management strategies with detailed emphasis on their practices and impacts on soil arthropods. Case reports of outstanding impacts of alternative land management strategies are underlined and their key findings and trends are highlighted. In this chapter, the importance of soil arthropods and the benefits of conserving them to enhance soil ecosystem shall be reviewed. The potential challenges and limitations that could hinder the implementation of various methods of alternative land management strategies towards soil diversity enrichment would be highlighted, and their possible mitigation approaches succinctly discussed.