Microbial indicators for assessing the adverse impact of technical-grade hexachlorocyclohexane on soil quality

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikel Anza

Technical-grade hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) has been widely used for human health and agricultural purposes. Consequently, HCH residues have entered the soil ecosystem with concomitant deleterious effects on soil quality. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of HCH on soil microbial properties as biological indicators of soil quality. To this end, non-polluted soil was spiked with different amounts of a heavily HCH-polluted soil in order to obtain a concentration gradient between 0 and 1,500 mg HCH kg<sup>-1</sup> dry matter soil. The mixtures were incubated under laboratory conditions for 2 months. Dehydrogenase activity, fluorescein diacetate hydrolysis activity (FDA), basal respiration, substrate-induced respiration (SIR), microbial biomass carbon, metabolic potential, and the soil quality index were negatively affected by increasing HCH concentrations in soil, in many cases following an exponential pattern. FDA and SIR appear <em>a priori</em> suitable indicators for the impact of HCH on soil microbial properties and, hence, soil quality.

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1497
Author(s):  
Anna Maria Gajda ◽  
Ewa Antonina Czyż ◽  
Agnieszka Klimkowicz-Pawlas

The physicochemical and microbial properties of soil under long-term monoculture of winter wheat were studied to assess the effects of two tillage systems of different intensities: reduced (RT) and conventional (CT). The research was carried out on an 18-year-old experimental field at Grabów (eastern Poland) between 2018 and 2020. The RT (ploughless) and the CT (mouldboard ploughing) systems with machine operating depths of up to 10 and 25 cm, respectively, were used. The analysed parameters were as follows: soil texture, pH, readily dispersible clay content (RDC), soil organic matter (SOM), carbon from particulate organic matter (POM-C), hot- and cold-water-extractable organic carbon (HWEC, CWEC) and nitrogen (HWEN, CWEN), soil basal respiration (SBR), microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and nitrogen (MBN), nitrification potential (NP), dehydrogenases (DEH), and acid (ACP) and alkaline (ALP) phosphatases activities. Several single soil quality indices, including: metabolic (qCO2) and microbial (MicQ) quotients, enzymatic pH level indicator (EpHI), stratification ratio (SR), and metabolic potential index (MP) were calculated. The use of RT resulted in increased SOM and, therefore, in decreased RDC and increased values of soil stability, POM-C, HWEC, CWEC, HWEN, CWEN, MBC, and MBN in relation to CT. The MicQ, EpHI, SR, and MP well reflected the effects of RT and CT systems on soil and appeared to be useful in soil quality assessment. The results showed the beneficial effects on soil of the less intensive RT system in comparison with CT. Statistical analysis showed the significance of differences between tillage systems and interrelationships between the studied soil quality parameters.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Yanmei Liu ◽  
Hangyu Yang ◽  
Zisheng Xing ◽  
Yali Zou ◽  
Zheming Cui

Changes in vegetation influence the function of grassland ecosystems. A degradation of the vegetation type has been found from high to low altitudes in Guanshan grassland in the order of forest grassland (FG) < shrub grassland (SG) < herb grassland (HG). However, there is poor information regarding the effect of vegetation degradation on soil microbes in Guanshan grassland. Therefore, our study evaluated the impact of vegetation degradation on the microbial parameters of soil, as well as the mechanisms responsible for these variations. Soils were sampled from 0 to 30 cm under the FG, SG, and HG in Guanshan grassland for determining the microbial biomass, enzymatic activities, basal respiration (BR), and metabolic quotient (qCO2) in April and July 2017. The results showed that vegetation types are important factors that obviously influence the above-mentioned soil microbial properties. The FG and SG had significantly higher soil microbial biomass, enzymatic activities, and BR than those of the HG, but markedly lower qCO2 (p < 0.05). Soil pH, available nitrogen (AN), organic carbon (SOC), total phosphorus (TP), available P (AP), and total N (TN) were key factors in the decline in the soil microbial biomass and microbial activities of the degraded vegetation. Moreover, slope aspects also affected the soil microbial properties, with the east slope having higher soil microbial biomass, enzymatic activities, and BR and lower qCO2 than the west slope. Conclusively, vegetation degradation has led to a decline in the soil microbial biomass and microbial activities, indicating the degradation of the Guanshan grassland ecosystem.


Oikos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 125 (5) ◽  
pp. 629-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleanor M. Slade ◽  
Tomas Roslin ◽  
Minna Santalahti ◽  
Thomas Bell

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (No. 9) ◽  
pp. 421-426
Author(s):  
Li Jun ◽  
Liu Lixin ◽  
Zhang Chunlei ◽  
Chen Chang ◽  
Lu Guangyuan ◽  
...  

Soil microbial properties are varied by growing different crops, ultimately reflecting the growth and reproduction of crops. In this study, two types of oilseed rape (Brassica napus L. ZS11 and ZY821) and wheat (Triticum aestivum L. ZM9023) were planted in the Jianghan plain of China. Rhizosphere soil samples were collected three months after sowing. Soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities and microbial diversity were determined. The results showed that soil available phosphorus significantly increased from 25.57 mg/kg (ZM9023) to 33.20 mg/kg (ZS11) and 35.72 mg/kg (ZY821), respectively. Invertase activity of ZS821 (0.86 mg glucose/g) was significantly lower than in ZS11 (1.04 mg glucose/g). Acid phosphatase activity under planting rapes was significantly higher than that under wheat. Urease activities significantly increased from 40.88 mg NH<sub>4</sub><sup>+</sup>-N/g soil/24 h (NFP) to 49.04 mg NH<sub>4</sub><sup>+</sup>-N/g soil/24 h (FNP) and 51.28 mg NH<sub>4</sub><sup>+</sup>-N/g soil/24 h (ZM9023), 51.60 mg NH<sub>4</sub><sup>+</sup>-N/g soil/24 h (ZY821) and 52.28 mg NH<sub>4</sub><sup>+</sup>-N/g soil/24 h (ZS11), respectively. The ACE (abundance based coverage estimator) and Chao1 indexes of bacteria of ZS11 were lower than ZY821, which were similar to ZM9023. Fertilization increased soil bacterial ACE and Chao1 indexes. However, ACE and Chao1, Shannon and Simpson indexes of soil fungi for ZS11 were significantly higher than in ZY821, which were similar to ZM9023 (except for the Shannon index).


BMC Ecology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Steinauer ◽  
Britta Jensen ◽  
Tanja Strecker ◽  
Enrica de Luca ◽  
Stefan Scheu ◽  
...  

PLoS ONE ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. e0125678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Strecker ◽  
Romain L. Barnard ◽  
Pascal A. Niklaus ◽  
Michael Scherer-Lorenzen ◽  
Alexandra Weigelt ◽  
...  

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheikh Adil Edrisi ◽  
Vishal Tripathi ◽  
Purushothaman Chirakkuzhyil Abhilash

The successful utilization of marginal and degraded lands for biomass and bioenergy production depends upon various factors such as climatic conditions, the adaptive traits of the tree species and their growth rate and respective belowground responses. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the growth performance of a bioenergy tree (Dalbergia sissoo Roxb.) grown in marginal and degraded land of the Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh, India and to analyze the effect of D. sissoo plantations on soil quality improvement over the study years. For this, a soil quality index (SQI) was developed based on principal component analysis (PCA) to understand the effect of D. sissoo plantations on belowground responses. PCA results showed that among the studied soil variables, bulk density (BD), moisture content (MC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and soil urease activity (SUA) are the key variables critically influencing the growth of D. sissoo. The SQI was found in an increasing order with the growth period of D. sissoo. (i.e., from 0.419 during the first year to 0.579 in the fourth year). A strong correlation was also observed between the growth attributes (diameter at breast height, R2 = 0.870; and plant height, R2 = 0.861) and the soil quality (p < 0.01). Therefore, the developed SQI can be used as key indicator for monitoring the restoration potential of D. sissoo growing in marginal and degraded lands and also for adopting suitable interventions to further improve soil quality for multipurpose land restoration programs, thereby attaining land degradation neutrality and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.


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