Assessment of soil quality in different ecosystems (with soils of Podolsk and Serpukhov districts of Moscow oblast as examples)

• Published in: Eurasian soil science Vol. 46; no. 12; pp. 1241 - 1252
• Main Authors: Gavrilenko, E. G, Ananyeva, N. D, Makarov, O. A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer-Verlag 01.12.2013; Springer US; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: agricultural land; Analysis; Biomass; carbon; Carbon content; Conservation of Soils; Degradation; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Ecosystems; fallow; forest ecosystems; Forest soils; forests; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; meadows; microbial biomass; microbiological quality; Microbiology; Rehabilitation; soil quality; soil sampling; Soil sciences; Soils; urban areas; Russia, Moscow; soil; ecosystem; carbon of microbial biomass; soil-ecological index; microbial respiration
• ISSN: 1064-2293; 1556-195X
• DOI: 10.1134/S1064229313120041

The values of the soil-ecological index and microbiological parameters (the carbon of microbial biomass Cₘᵢc, its ratio to the total organic carbon Cₘᵢc/Cₒᵣg, and basal respiration) were determined for the soddy-podzolic, soddy-gley, bog-podzolic, meadow alluvial, and gray forest soils under different land uses (forest, fallow, cropland, and urban areas) in the Podolsk and Serpukhov districts of Moscow oblast (237 and 45 sampling points, respectively). The soil sampling from the upper 10 cm (without the litter horizon) was performed in September and October. To calculate the soil-ecological index, both soil (physicochemical and agrochemical) and climatic characteristics were taken into account. Its values for fallow, cropland, and urban ecosystems averaged 70.2, 72.8, and 64.2 points (n = 90, 17, and 24, respectively). For the soils of forest ecosystems, the average value of the soil-ecological index was lower (54.4; n = 151). At the same time, the micro-biological characteristics of the studied forest soils were generally higher than those in the soils of fallow, cropland, and urban ecosystems. In this context, to estimate the soil quality in different ecosystems on the basis of the soil-ecological index, the use of a correction coefficient for the biological properties of the soils (the Cₘᵢc content) was suggested. The ecological substantiation of this approach for assessing the quality of soils in different ecosystems is presented in the paper.