Response of Soil Enzyme Activities and Their Relationships with Physicochemical Properties to Different Aged Coastal Reclamation Areas, Eastern China

Abstract

Land reclamation transforms a tidal flat from a marine ecosystem to terrestrial ecosystem, which significantly changes the soil ecosystem process, affecting the soil enzyme activities. Soil enzyme is involved in almost all soil biochemical processes. Clarifying the relationship between soil physicochemical properties and soil enzyme activities can reveal the changes of soil quality after reclamation and provide a theoretical basis for the scientific regulation of the soil ecosystem. In this study, a total of 72 soil samples were collected from a coastal reclamation area with different years of reclamation (0, 7, 32, 40, and 63 a) in Rudong County. The changes in soil physicochemical properties and enzyme activities within different reclamation years were analyzed by classical statistical analysis, and the relationship between soil enzyme activities and physicochemical properties was analyzed using a redundancy analysis. The results showed that longterm land reclamation had significant effects on soil physicochemical properties and enzyme activities. pH and electrical conductivity showed a decreasing trend after reclamation, while the content of soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus showed a trend of "rapidly accumulate-gradually consume-accumulate again" with increasing years of reclamation. Compared with the bare flat area (0 a), amylase, dehydrogenase, and acid phosphatase activity initially increased and then decreased with increasing years of reclamation, while urease and alkaline phosphatase activities were characterized by an increase-decrease-increase trend. Meanwhile, the enzyme activities within different reclamation ages were basically higher in surface soil than deep layers. Redundancy analysis revealed that the soil physicochemical properties explained 69.8% of the variation in soil enzyme activities, and an obvious relationship existed between pH, electronic conductivity, soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and soil enzyme activities (P<0.01). The order of importance of soil physicochemical properties to soil enzyme activities was as follows:total nitrogen > soil organic carbon > pH > total phosphorus > electronic conductivity.