Microbial biomass and activity in salt affected soils under arid conditions
By Bing-Cheng Yuan, Zi-zhen Li, Hua Liu, Meng Gao, Yan-Yu Zhang. 2007
405 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract The effects of salinity on the size, activity and community structure of soil microorganisms in salt affected arid soils were investigated in Shuangta region of west central Anxi County, Gansu Province, China. Eleven soils were selected which had an electrical conductivity (EC) gradient of 0.32–23.05 mS cm−1. There was a significant negative exponential relationship between EC and microbial biomass C, the percentage of soil organic C present as microbial biomass C, microbial biomass N, microbial biomass N to total N ratio, basal soil respiration, fluorescein diacetate (FDA) hydrolysis rate, arginine ammonification rate and potentially mineralizable N. The exponential relationships with EC demonstrate the highly detrimental effect that soil salinity had on the microbial community. In contrast, the metabolic quotient (qCO2) was positively correlated with EC, and a quadratic relationship between qCO2 and EC was observed. There was an inverse relationship between qCO2 and microbial biomass C. These results indicate that higher salinity resulted in a smaller, more stressed microbial community which was less metabolically efficient. The biomass C to biomass N ratio tended to be lower in soils with higher salinity, reflecting the bacterial dominance in microbial biomass in saline soils. Consequently, our data suggest that salinity is a stressful environment for soil microorganisms.
Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Ecology, Soil Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c9ba6136aabff9f643a975491150d40d6507a9a4
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Citations in the corpus
- Comparative study of the effects of salinity on life-cycle parameters of four soil-dwelling species (Folsomia candida, Enchytraeus doerjesi, Eisenia fetida and Aporrectodea caliginosa) (2009, background): “It also impacts on the growth and survival of microorganisms (Lippi et al. 2000; Yuan et al. 2007), plants (Ramoliya et al.”
- Changes in soil microbial community structure and enzyme activity with amendment of biochar-manure compost and pyroligneous solution in a saline soil from Central China (2015, background): “Salinity inflicts extremely a harmful influence on biochemical processes essential for maintenance of soil quality [7].”