Estimating the microarthropod diversity in cropping systems by comparing ecological indices across Europe ☆ Gaia Bigiotti a , Francesco Vitali a , Stefano Mocali a , Giovanni L'Abate a , Eligio Malus`a b , Dawid Kozacki b , Irena Bertoncelj c , Morgane Ourry d , Massimo Pugliese e , Heinrich Maisel f , Expedito Olimi g , Maria Grazia Tommasini h , Carlo Jacomini i , Lorenzo D'Avino a,* a CREA Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Via di Lanciola 12/A, 50125 Florence, Italy b The National Institute of Horticultural Research, ul. Konstytucji 3 Maja 1-3, 96-100 Skierniewice, Poland c Agriculture Institute of Slovenia, Hacquetova ulica 17, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia d Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Thorvaldsensvej 40, 1871 Frederiksberg C, Denmark e Agroinnova, University of Torino, Largo Paolo Braccini 2, 10095 Grugliasco (TO), Italy f F¨ordergemeinschaft ¨ Okologischer Obstbau e.V. (F ¨ OKO e.V.), Traubenplatz 5, 74189 Weinsberg, Germany g Institute of Environmental Biotechnology, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria h RI.NOVA soc. Coop. via dell'Arrigoni, 120 47522, Cesena (FC), Italy i Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), National Centre for the national laboratories network, Biology Area, Soil & Land Ecology Laboratory, via del Fosso di Fiorano 64, 00143, Rome (RM), Italy A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Invertebrate diversity Organic farming Soil biodiversity Apple orchards Agroecosystems Horticulture ABSTRACT Microarthropods are pivotal components of the soil mesofauna, significantly contributing to the enhancement of soil quality and structural properties. The evaluation of microarthropod diversity provides valuable information on soil health, owing to their contribution to specific ecosystem services of soil. To monitor mesofauna diversity, the definition and validation of structural ecological indices capable of comprehensively assessing micro- arthropod community diversity and functionality is needed. In this work, several ecological indices (Hill's number, Acari:Collembola, QBS-ar, FEMI, QBS-ab) based on microarthropod biological forms (BFs) were applied to evaluate soil mesofauna biodiversity in 17 agroecosystem sites under either organic or integrated manage- ment. In addition, a novel calculation of the QBS-ar, which consider all observed BFs, called QBS-ar_BF, was proposed and compared to the other indices. The frequency and abundance of BFs highly adapted to soil life differ between management systems (integrated < organic) and crop duration (pluriannual > annual). Overall, the indices that best discriminated the different management in cropping systems were those based on the QBS approach (QBS-ar and QBS-ar_BF) . Moreover, the newly developed QBS-ar_BF index highlighted a higher discrimination capacity due to its inclusion of all observed BFs, i.e. all microarthropod community spectrum information. This study confirmed the pivotal role of edaphic mesofauna in highlighting the differences between soil management and crops across Europe, opening perspectives to new monitoring frameworks to detect shifts in community structure and functional traits. 1. Introduction The loss of soil biodiversity is a global threat for soil health and novel policies need to be timely implemented as adequate countermeasures (Van der Putten et al., 2023). The European Union set ambitious policies aimed to restore soil ecosystems by increasing 10 % high-diversity agricultural land by 2030, and by improving ecological status of degraded soils (EU, 2021). To this purpose, the development of a well- structured biodiversity monitoring at European level, will become fundamental to achieve those goals ( European Union, 2024). However, to be able to monitor soil health – and in particular biodiversity losses – it is of utmost importance to define and validate multiple structural ecological indices which recapture the diversity of soil biota at multiple levels (Harris et al., 2022; Ritz et al., 2009; Stone et al., 2016). ☆ This article is part of a Special issue entitled: ‘Soil Biodiversity in Europe’ published in Applied Soil Ecology. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: lorenzo.davino@crea.gov.it (L. D'Avino). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Soil Ecology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apsoil https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2025.106357 Received 28 January 2025; Received in revised form 21 July 2025; Accepted 30 July 2025 Applied Soil Ecology 214 (2025) 106357 Available online 20 August 2025 0929-1393/© 2025 Published by Elsevier B.V.