Effect of cattle silvopastoral systems relative to forests on the diversity, richness, and abundance of soil bacteria and fungi

This comparison provides a supplementary vote count analysis for the article, “Meta-analysis shows overall benefits of cattle silvopastoral systems for biodiversity in fragmented forest landscapes,” submitted to the journal Ecological Applications. The meta-analysis examines the effect of silvopastoral systems (SPS) relative to treeless pastures and forests on three measures of biodiversity (species richness, abundance, and diversity) across seven taxa (birds, dung beetles, insects other than dung beetles, vertebrates, plants, soil bacteria and fungi, and soil macroinvertebrates). To do this, we calculated standardized effect sizes (log response ratios) that combine species richness, abundance, and diversity values reported in the 45 scientific documents included in our meta-analysis.

We use this ORKG comparison to conduct a simple vote count of SPS effects based on the values originally reported in these documents, focusing on the effect of SPS relative to forests on soil bacteria and fungi (n=10 contributions, referred to as effect sizes in the meta-analysis). This vote count shows that 5 of the 10 contributions reported a positive effect of SPS on soil bacteria and fungi. In contrast, three reported no effect, and two reported a negative effect. In comparison, the meta-analysis revealed no significant difference between SPS and forests for this taxon, suggesting it produced a more conservative outcome.