Millipede (Diplopoda) communities in agricultural landscape: influence of management form

Currently, the alternative forms of management are increasingly applied in agriculture. Although their less negative impact on environment is generally supposed, there is still a lack of a reliable data about their real favourability for the abundance and diversity of soil invertebrates, including millipedes. Therefore, the aim of our study was to find out, whether the form of agricultural management affects the structure of millipede communities and hence, the performance of their functions in soil ecosystems. The research was carried out using pitfall trapping through growing seasons 2005 to 2007 on the model territory of Agricultural Cooperative (AC) Očová (Central Slovakia). Millipedes were captured at four pairs of sites (8 sites in total). The same cultivated crop (wheat, barley, alfalfa or permanent law) with application of two different forms of agricultural management (conventional form and sustainable form with basic sustainable agro-environmental scheme) was characteristic of each pair of sites. The research results disclosed that the management form plays a significant role, especially in such agrocoenoses, in which the same crop is cultivated for several years (e.g. sites with alfalfa or permanent lawn), i.e., on the sites without ploughing or other similar agrotechnical measures. In these cases, the sites with the sustainable agro-environmental scheme had higher species richness (8 and 9 species) and higher total abundance of millipede communities (2.2 and 5.7 ind. collected per one day and one trap) than the sites with the conventional form of agrotechnical management (5 and 5 species, 0.09 and 0.3 ind. collected per one day and one trap). In order to obtain a more detailed knowledge about the impact of agricultural management forms on millipede communities, this kind of research should be carried out in different conditions (other crops, soil conditions, climate zones, etc.) as well.