Abstract
Soil humus dissimilation in 8 kinds of pure forests was detected and its relationship with soil biological and chemical properties and leaf litter characteristics was assessed using partial least squares regression (PLS-R). The results indicated that: The particular soil properties in pure forest rather than the litter characteristics exhibited the dominant impacts on humus accumulation and degree of humifications. High soil microbial biomass carbon (MC), alkaline N and available P contents, soil phosphatase, dehydrogenase and urease activities, and litter accumulation were associated with high humic acid accumulation, while high soil available Fe and litter Mn contents were opposite. High soil MC, alkaline N, available Zn and P contents, and dehydrogenase and phosphatase activities were in favour of fulvic acid accumulation, while the high litter Mn content were opposite. High soil MC and alkaline N contents, dehydrogenase and phosphatase activities and high litter N content were associated with the accumulation of humin, in contrast, increase in soil available K and Zn contents and sucrase activity hindered this process. Increases in soil available K content, urease and peroxidase activities and litter accumulation and C/P ratio increased the degree of humifications of soil, while the increases in soil available Fe and Cu contents, catalase activity and litter P content significantly decreased it.
Highlights
The eco-environment in the Loess Plateau, China is fragile, characterized by soil erosion and deterioration of natural vegetation due to excess deforestation
The result indicated that the Qp of humus soil from P. tabuliformis and R. pseudoacacia forests was the highest in the tested 8 forests, followed by L. principis-rupprechtii, P. simonii, Q. liaotungensis, P. orientalis and P. armandii, while humus soil from B. platyphylla forest exhibited the lowest Qp value
The results revealed that (Equations 1-4, Fig. 2): Higher soil microbial biomass carbon, alkaline N and available P contents, higher soil phosphatase, dehydrogenase and urease activities, and higher litter accumulation were to the benefit of humic acid (HA) accumulation, while the higher soil available Fe and litter Mn contents were adverse to HA accumulation
Summary
The eco-environment in the Loess Plateau, China is fragile, characterized by soil erosion and deterioration of natural vegetation due to excess deforestation. The artificial pure forests play key roles in environmental protection and soil and water conservation (Liu et al, 2010). As the long-term selective utilization of soil nutrients by single species (Podrázský et al, 2009; Mi et al, 2015; Hansen et al, 2009) and their special environmental effects, such as single litter returning to soil and special secondary metabolite released (Mi et al, 2013; Wang et al, 2015), the pure forests generally exhibit obvious soil properties alteration (Luc et al, 2015; Mi et al, 2015; Andreetta et al, 2016), such as decreases or increases in the contents of soil organic matter and available nutrients, enzymatic activities and microbial populations (Liu et al, 2010; Mi et al, 2013).
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