Microbiological characterization of soddy soils of the Severnaya Dvina River floodplain

Abstract

Soils of virgin lands, hayfields, and plowed lands were studied in the Severnaya Dvina River floodplain. The potential possibilities of microbiological processes were shown to increase in the summer in the soils in the following sequence as related to the increasing number of copiotrophs in them: virgin land—hayfield—plowed land. Copiotrophs are microorganisms that use easily available organic substances, including nitrogencontaining ones. The increase in their number enhanced the nitrification, while other microbiological processes became weaker. The number of fungi increased due to the improvement of the water-air regime. As the agricultural use of the soils became more intense, the cellulose decomposition slowed down, the actual nitrification ability was lowered, and the carbon content in the physiologically active microbial biomass decreased because the area of the natural plant cover was reduced from the virgin land to the plowed land.