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Soil quality changes in land degradation as indicated by soil chemical, biochemical and microbiological properties in a karst area of southwest Guizhou, China

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Environmental Geology

Abstract

Not only the nutritional status and biological activity but also the soil ecological functioning or soil health has been impacted profoundly by land degradation in the karst area of southwest China where the karst ecosystems are generally considered as extremely vulnerable to land degradation under intensified land-use changes. The objectives of this study are to elucidate the changes in overall soil quality by a holistic approach of soil nutritional, biological activity, and soil health indicators in the karst area as impacted by intense cultivation and vegetation degradation. Topsoil samples were collected on selected eco-tesserae in a sequence of land degradation in a karst area of southwest Guizhou in 2004. The soil nutrient pools of organic carbon (Corg), extractable extracellular carbon (Cext), total soil nitrogen (Nt), alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen (Nah), total phosphorus (Pt), available phosphorus (Pa) were analyzed by wet soil chemistry. The soil biological properties were studied by means of measurements of microbial biomass carbon (both by fumigation–extraction, FE-Cmic, and by calculation from substrate-incubation respiration, SIR-Cmic) of respiration [respiration without addition of substrates, basal respiration (BR), and potential respiration (PR) with substrate-incubation] and of soil enzyme activities (invertase, urease, and alkaline phosphatase). Soil health status was assessed by simple indices of Cmic/Corg and BR/Cmic in conjunction with bacterial community structures determined by polymerase chain reaction and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. While the nutritional pool parameters, such as Corg and Cext, described basically the changes in soil life-supporting capacity with cultivation interference and vegetation declined, those parameters of biological activity such as FE-Cmic, SIR, and SIR-Cmic as well as bacterial community structures measured by molecular method evidenced well the changes in soil functioning for ecosystem health with the land degradation.

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Acknowledgments

This study was partially supported by China Natural Science Foundation under a grant number of 90202017. The molecular study was conducted at the State Key Lab of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement. The authors would like to thank State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Guizhou Academy of Science and Guizhou University for assistance for their kind help in soil sampling.

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  1. Institute of Resources, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, China

    Pingjiu Zhang, Lianqing Li, Genxing Pan & Jingchen Ren

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  1. Pingjiu Zhang
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Correspondence to Genxing Pan.

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Zhang, P., Li, L., Pan, G. et al. Soil quality changes in land degradation as indicated by soil chemical, biochemical and microbiological properties in a karst area of southwest Guizhou, China. Environ Geol 51, 609–619 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-006-0356-4

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