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Spontaneous grass covers are an inexpensive soil erosioncontrol measure in olive orchards. Olive farmers allow grass to grow onsloping terrain to comply with the basic environmental standards derived fromthe Common Agricultural Policy (CAP, European Commission). However, to datethere are few studies assessing the environmental quality considering suchcovers. In this study, we measured biodiversity indices for spontaneous grasscover in two olive orchards with contrasting site conditions and managementregimes in order to evaluate the potential for biodiversity metrics to serveas an indicator of soil degradation. In addition, the differences andtemporal variability of biodiversity indicators and their relationships withenvironmental factors such as soil type and properties, precipitation,topography and soil management were analysed. Different grass cover biodiversity indices were evaluated in two oliveorchard catchments under conventional tillage and no tillage with grasscover, during 3 hydrological years (2011–2013). Seasonal samples of vegetalmaterial and photographs in a permanent grid(4 samples ha−1) weretaken to characterize the temporal variations of the number of species,frequency of life forms, diversity and modified Shannon and Pielouindices. Sorensen's index showed strong differences in species composition for thegrass covers in the two olive orchard catchments, which are probably linked to thedifferent site conditions. The catchment (CN) with the best site conditions(deeper soil and higher precipitation) and most intense management presentedthe highest biodiversity indices as well as the highest soil losses (over10 t ha−1). In absolute terms, the diversity indices of vegetationwere reasonably high for agricultural systems in both catchments, despite thefact that management activities usually severely limit the landscape and thevariety of species. Finally, a significantly higher content of organic matterin the first 10 cm of soil was found in the catchment with worse siteconditions in terms of water deficit, average annual soil losses of2 t ha−1 and the least intense management. Therefore, the biodiversityindices considered in this study to evaluate spontaneous grass cover were notfound to be suitable for describing the soil degradation in the studycatchments

soil

Exploring the linkage between spontaneous grass cover biodiversity and soil degradation in two olive orchard microcatchments with contrasting environmental and management conditions