VARIATION IN SOIL MACROFAUNA DIVERSITY IN THE DIFFERENT LAND USE TYPES IN NAMANYONYI SUB COUNTY, MBALE DISTRICT UGANDA

This study was conducted in Namanyonyi Sub-county, Mbale district, Uganda. It compared: soil macrofauna abundance and diversity, the physicochemical properties of the soil, and earthworms and termites variability and biomass vis-à-vis the land use types (fallow, mixed cropping and eucalyptus plantation). Each land-use type was sampled for soil macrofauna using three methods (monolith, termites transect and pitfall traps). Thirteen species of invertebrates spread across 12 orders were recorded across the different land use types. The major macrofauna groups recorded included: Hymenoptera, Blattodea, Araneae, Orthoptera, Chilopoda, coleopteran, Diplopoda, Hemiptera, Dermaptera and pseudo-Scorpionida. Generally, Hymenoptera was the most abundant of the macrofauna groups constituting about (64.77%) of the total followed by Blattodea (22.69%). The other macrofauna (Araneae, Diplopoda, Chilopoda, Orthoptera, Blattidae, Hemiptera, Dermaptera, Mantodea and psudoscorpionida each constituted <10% of the total macrofauna recorded. Soil macro fauna was more diverse in eucalyptus land use types, followed by fallow and lastly mixed cropping. However, the reverse was also true for biomass. Soil chemical characteristics did not significantly vary across land use types (ANOVA, P>0.05). Pearson correlation showed that there is a moderate positive relationship between macro fauna biomass and calcium (r= 0.666. P< 0.05), The findings of this study seem to indicate that based on biomass, fallow is a better way of conserving invertebrate macrofauna while eucalyptus is the least and calcium levels in the soil determine the presence of these organisms.