Proposal of Biogeochemical Indicators for the Ecosystem Services Supported by Volcanic Ash Anthrosols in Tenerife Island (Spain)

摘要

Soils hold the basic support functions for the services supplied by ecosystems, such as food production, micro-climatic regulation, control of erosion, retention and quality of water. These functions and services are receiving a renewed attention because of their links with the human well-being's components [1]. Many authors consider soil as an integrated system, where dynamic organomineral interactions are in part responsible for its regulating role as regards the flow of C, nutrients and water throughout the whole ecosystem [2]. However, one of the main problems to evaluate the ecosystem services of a local soil under different management regimes is the lack of specific indicators to be used. One part of the problem consists of the variable meaning of the same descriptor in the different soils (e.g. C/N ratio is not a suitable indicator of the quality of humification in agriculture soils, mainly when values are lower than 7 which could be a symptom of chemical overfertilization).