Evaluation the Impact of Climate and Land Use on Soil Macrofauna Biodiversity

Soil macrofauna is one of the important components of soil biodiversity. This research was conducted to study the effect of climate and land use on soil macrofauna biodiversity in Northern Khorasan in 2009. The impact of climate was considered with selection two regions including Shirvan, with semi-arid climate and Jajarm, with arid-climate. In each region, two land uses including rangeland and agricultural land were considered. In sample units, the macrofauna were collected with pitfall traps, sorted and counted in terms of family. The analysis of data were perfumed using of t-test, ANOVA and PCA. The results showed that land use had significant impact on diversity in both regions. So, the taxonomic richness and Shannon diversity index were lower in rangelands compared to agricultural lands. This was attributed to low plant diversity and pressure of livestock grazing in rangelands. Also different composition of macrofauna was formed in two land uses. Impact of climate on diversity and composition of macrofauna was too much, so the favorable climate in the Shirvan compared to Jajarm region led to its improvement of soil macrofauna biodiversity.