Topsoil transposition has been identified as an environmental restoration technique capable of accelerating regeneration in degraded areas. In addition to the seed bank, topsoil contains invertebrates and microorganisms essential in ecological succession. This study evaluated the temporal variation in the macrofauna community structure in an experiment with topsoil transposition. We hypothesized that the morphospecies richness, functional groups and macrofauna biomass would be higher in the plots with topsoil and native vegetation compared with plots with no topsoil. We further hypothesized that the composition of macrofauna community and the proportion of functional groups in the topsoil and the reference plots would become more similar over time. The community was compared between plots that received topsoil, plots that did not receive topsoil and plots in a natural vegetation, over 14 months. The macrofauna biomass and the diversity of functional groups were equivalent in the degraded area and the topsoil. The effect of treatment on richness depended on time, and it was possible to observe higher values of macrofauna richness in the topsoil compared with the degraded area in some months. The compositions of the macrofauna communities in the degraded area and the topsoil showed greater similarity to each other. In contrast, the reference area showed the greatest dissimilarity with the other treatments. In general, the macrofauna community in the topsoil remained more similar to the degraded area. However, in the topsoil plots, we found higher macrofauna richness during rainy months and an increase in predator biomass. In conclusion, the macrofauna community in the topsoil, which has changed over time, presented higher values of morphospecies richness in some months and the increase in predator biomass, indicating an increase in the complexity of the community. Besides, the topsoil can improve biodiversity, but this does not produce the natural communities found at reference sites, in a small-time scale experiment.

中文翻译：

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表土转位对高度退化土壤大型动物分类和功能多样性的影响

表土转换已被确定为一种能够加速退化地区再生的环境恢复技术。除了种子库外，表土还含有生态演替中必不可少的无脊椎动物和微生物。本研究评估了表土转位实验中大型动物群落结构的时间变化。我们假设与没有表土的地块相比，有表土和原生植被的地块的形态物种丰富度、功能群和大型动物生物量会更高。我们进一步假设，随着时间的推移，大型动物群落的组成以及表土和参考地块中功能组的比例将变得更加相似。社区在接受表土的地块之间进行比较，超过 14 个月未接受表土和天然植被的地块。退化区和表土的大型动物生物量和功能组的多样性相当。处理对丰富度的影响取决于时间，与几个月的退化区域相比，可以观察到表土中大型动物丰富度的更高值。退化区的大型动物群落组成与表层土壤表现出更大的相似性。相比之下，参考区域与其他处理的差异最大。总的来说，表土中的大型动物群落与退化区域更相似。然而，在表土地块中，我们发现雨季大型动物丰富度更高，捕食者生物量增加。综上所述，表土中的大型动物群落随着时间的推移而变化，在某些月份呈现出更高的形态物种丰富度值和捕食者生物量的增加，表明群落的复杂性增加。此外，表土可以改善生物多样性，但这不会在小规模实验中产生在参考地点发现的自然群落。