Descripción

The presence of trees in a grazing ecosystem increases edaphic populations and, therefore, symbiotic relationships. In the high Andean ecosystems of the northern part of Ecuador there is little research on this topic. The objective of this work is to determine the population growth of the edaphic fauna in the forest-pasture systems. For this case, this system has the following combinations: alder (Alnus acuminata) and forage mix, acacia (Acacia melanoxylon) and forage mix, and a control with forage mix. The count was carried out in two periods: July and December, in the years 2016, 2017 and 2018. For the statistical part, an analysis of variance and the Tukey’s test were carried out, which allowed showing probabilities and identifying the best response of species growth, depending on forest-pasture treatment. The statistical analyzes show the evolution of the system in the first year, in which there are no significant differences, due to the transplantation and growth of the trees; from the second year there are already edaphic changes between treatments due to an increase in organic matter, which influences the species in the soil. The statistical results conclude that the forest-pasture system with acacia has more edaphic population.