Reconstructing the Past by Regenerating Biodiversity: A Treatise on Weed Contribution to Soil Quality at a Post-cultivation Succession

Plant communities associated with the agricultural landscape are gradually getting impoverished and even eradicated and replaced by poor species in many places of the world. A large number of studies are now available about the interactions between root and the soil system. However, influence of plants on aggregate stability remains to be a complex issue. The aim of this work was to determine the changes in the soil quality indicators that have developed at the rhizospheres under the selected weeds in the abandoned land. The results confirmed significant changes on bio-diversity of weed communities in a succession of over a decade. There were only 14 weed species in the abandoned field in the spring of 1998. The survey in the spring of 2008 confirmed the presence of 34 species. A decadal abandonment of the prime soil of the Mediterranean environment proved to increase the amount of the water stable aggregates and the mycorrhizal activity along with the accumulation of the organic and available nitrogen.