Soil Microbial Activity During Secondary Vegetation Succession in Semiarid Abandoned Lands of Loess Plateau

Soil health: looking for suitable indicators. What should be considered to assess the effects of use and management on soil health?

“…Similar results were observed in a secondary forest under regeneration for 20 years (Nogueira et al, 2006). In general, the levels of soil organic carbon increase with the vegetation recovery (Jiang et al, 2009;Chodak and Niklinska, 2010;Bautista-Cruz et al, 2012), but this is generally a slow process.…”

“…For example, dehydrogenase was the lowest in the autumn due to low temperatures that restricted the soil microbial activities, while the activity of urease was inversely correlated with the concentrations of ammonium in soil when both plants and microorganisms were less active. On the other hand, phosphatase and arylsulphatase were not affected by temperature, but depended on the amount of litter on the soil surface (Kang et al, 2009 Assessment of C and N microbial biomass, soil respiration and enzyme activities are correlated with the content of soil organic matter and the age of successional stages (Jiang et al, 2009) and are generally lower in agricultural soils when compared to native forests, a fact attributed to less C inputs (Dinesh et al, 2003;Kaschuk et al, 2010;Bini et al, 2013). Additionally, the enzyme activities also correlate with the soil microbial biomass (Jiang et al, 2009).…”

“…On the other hand, phosphatase and arylsulphatase were not affected by temperature, but depended on the amount of litter on the soil surface (Kang et al, 2009 Assessment of C and N microbial biomass, soil respiration and enzyme activities are correlated with the content of soil organic matter and the age of successional stages (Jiang et al, 2009) and are generally lower in agricultural soils when compared to native forests, a fact attributed to less C inputs (Dinesh et al, 2003;Kaschuk et al, 2010;Bini et al, 2013). Additionally, the enzyme activities also correlate with the soil microbial biomass (Jiang et al, 2009). Forest cleaning, cropping and management affect the soil microbial diversity and activity (Degens et al, 2000, Stark et al, 2008.…”

Chemical and Microbiological Attributes Under Different Soil Cover

“…Our results indicate that there are significant differences between the areas of native vegetation, environmental recovery and of sugarcane cultivation ( Table 2). The greater release of CO 2 in native vegetation areas compared to environmental recovery areas may be related to the constant and greater incorporation of residues, which promotes an increase in biomass and soil microbial activity in climax communities or secondary successional stages rather than at the beginning of succession (JIANG et al, 2009). The high plant diversity in these areas also favors higher diversity of specific combinations of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (König et al 2010) as well as bacterial communities (NAZIR et al, 2010) and changes in physical and chemical soil attributes responding to changes in the community structure of soil organisms (RACHID et al, 2012).…”

A Basin-Scale Estimation of Carbon Stocks of a Forest Ecosystem Characterized by Spatial Distribution and Contributive Features in the Liuxihe River Basin of Pearl River Delta

“…Generally, forest biomass is not the only factor to affect SOC and soil properties [71,72]. Climatic factors [73], vegetation diversity [74,75], anthropogenic factors [76][77][78], and natural disturbances [79][80][81] also affect the SOC content of forest soils. Further research should analyze the dynamic mechanisms by which these factors affect the SOC content to provide more accurate estimates of forest soil C stocks, as well as strategies to maintain these C stocks.…”