Soil microarthropod biodiversity in agricultural landscapesNaglič, Vid (Avtor) Martinović, Tijana (Avtor) Šibanc, Nataša (Avtor) Krogh, Paul Henning (Avtor) Sapkota, Rumakanta (Avtor) Winding, Anne (Avtor) Leskovšek, Robert (Avtor) Bertoncelj, Irena (Avtor) MesofaunaSoil quality indexMicroarthropodsMicroarthropod biodiversityCOIMolecular bioindicatorsEnvironmental DNASoil biodiversityThe Qualita ` Biologica del Suolo (QBS-ar) index provides a rapid, low-cost measure of soil biological quality by assigning arthropods in morphotaxonomic groups named biological forms. Although widely used, its low taxonomic resolution and reliance on expert-defined scores limits its sensitivity to subtle management effects. We therefore evaluated whether DNA metabarcoding can complement and refine QBS-based assessments by analysing soil microarthropod communities across seven agricultural treatments differing in tillage intensity and production system. Using COI metabarcoding, we compared α- and β-diversity patterns between molecular and QBS datasets, evaluated different QBS index variants in relation to DNA amplicon sequence variant (ASV) richness, and explored potential for a preliminary DNA-derived index based on QBS-like trait scoring. DNA metabarcoding resolved clear community separation among production systems and treatments that the QBS only partially detected and revealed indicator taxa characteristic of reduced-disturbance and organic management. The QBS indices distinguished major production systems but were less responsive to within-system variation. Correlations between ASV richness and QBS-ar varied among production systems, indicating contextdependent index performance. The experimental DNA-derived QBS index (QBS-DNA) retained a QBS-like trait signal, showing positive treatment-mean correlations with morphology-based QBS-ar and QBS-ar_BF, but it did not significantly distinguish treatments. These results support QBS-DNA as a proof-of-concept framework for translating trait-based soil-quality indicators into molecular biodiversity assessments. As molecular tools and trait databases expand, metabarcoding enables the development of next-generation soil biodiversity indicators based on explicit, species-level functional traits, moving beyond the constraints of classical QBS formulations while retaining their ecological intent.20262026-05-11 12:51:19Neznano29347UDK: 631.4ISSN pri članku: 1873-0272DOI: 10.1016/j.apsoil.2026.107118COBISS_ID: 277708803sl