Abstract
Soil dehydrogenase activity is a good indicator of overall microbial activity in soil, and it can serve as a good indicator of soil condition. However, seasonal changes in soil moisture content may have an effect on soil dehydrogenase activity, making an accurate assessment of soil condition difficult. In this study, we attempted to determine the significance of soil dehydrogenase activity for assessing soil condition, and we attempted to find a way to account for the influence of soil moisture content on soil dehydrogenase activity.' Soils were sampled in dry evergreen forest (original vegetation), bare ground (severely degraded) and Acacia plantation plots established on bare ground in 1986 and 1987 in Sakaerat, Thailand. Soil physico-chemical characteristics and dehydrogenase activity in the Acacia plantation soil had few differences from those in the evergreen forest soil. Soil dehydrogenase activity varied significantly between the bare ground and the forests regardless of the season (wet or dry), while the season did not produce a significant variation in soil dehydrogenase activity, as determined by repeated measures analysis of variance (p=0.077). The physico-chemical data provided the first principal component as a good measure of soil fertility. Values of soil dehydrogenase activity significantly correlated to scores of the soil samples of the first principal component (R=0.787, p<0.001). We found that soil dehydrogenase activity is a useful indicator of the extent of soil degradation and the rehabilitative effects of reforestation in this part of Thailand.
Highlights
Soil microbes contribute to plant growth in various ways (Albrecht et al 1981, Handman et al 1991, Derylo and Skorupska 1992), and soil dehydrogenase activity is an indicator of soil microbial activity (Herman and Maier 2000)
Since dehydrogenases are not active as extracellular enzymes in soil, soil dehydrogenase activity is considered to be a good indicator of overall microbial activity (Dick 1997)
Physico-chemical soil characteristics and soil dehydrogenase activity: There was a significant correlation between the land degradation/rehabilitation and most soil variables that we tested (p
Summary
Soil microbes contribute to plant growth in various ways (Albrecht et al 1981, Handman et al 1991, Derylo and Skorupska 1992), and soil dehydrogenase activity is an indicator of soil microbial activity (Herman and Maier 2000). When a soil sample is air-dried, the dehydrogenase activity may increase (Rao et al 2003) or decrease (Ross and McNeilly 1972, Rao et al 2003) depending on the makeup of the soil itself or the particular soil horizon These past findings led us to consider wet/dry seasonal changes. The objective of this study was to test the following hypothesis: soil dehydrogenase activity in Sakaerat changes significantly between the wet and dry seasons, and this seasonal variation is more pronounced than the variation along the land degradation-rehabilitation gradient. The relative significance of the soil moisture changes was analyzed by multiple regression analyses assuming abiotic soil environmental gradients (McCune et al 2002) as the predictors of soil dehydrogenase activity
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