The lower qCO2 values that were observed in the agroforestry compared
to the conventional agricultural systems gave evidence of possible
higher microbial substrate use efficiency in agroforestry systems.
Microbial communities fromsoils inman-made ecosystemswith higher
planned plant diversity (e.g., intercropping systems or mixed plantations)
are usually energetically more efficient (i.e., lower qCO2) compared
to microbial communities from soils in monoculture systems
(Anderson, 2003). Hungria et al. (2011) showed that crop productivity
may benefit from improvement in microbial metabolic efficiency.
Mäder et al. (2002) provided data suggesting that greater energy efficiency
and lower qCO2 are the result ofmore diverse soil microbial communities.
This assumption was supported by results from agroforestry
studies that were performed in eastern Canada, and which showed
that agroforestry systems can support more diverse microbial and AM
fungal communities compared to conventional mono-cropping systems
(e.g., Bainard et al., 2012; Lacombe et al., 2009).