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Soil humus differentiation and correlation with other soil biochemical properties in pure forests in semiarid lowhilly area of Inner Mongolia, China.

ZHANG Xiao-xi1, LIU Zeng-wen2,3, BING Yuan-hao4, ZHU Bo-chao2, HUANG Liang-jia2   

  1. (1Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China; 2College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China; 3Ministry of Agriculture Key Laboratory of Plant Nutrition and the Agrienvironment in Northwest China, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China; 4College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China
  • Online:2014-10-18 Published:2014-10-18

Abstract: Whether the content and composition of soil humus in pure forest change due to its simple component of litter and specificity of singlespecies dominant community is a key problem for forest sustainable management. In this study, soils from 6 kind of pure forests in semiarid lowhilly area of Inner Mongolia were collected and their humus and other biochemical properties were measured to investigate the differentiation of soil humus and the impact factors. The results showed that the soil of Picea asperata and Betula platyphylla pure forests had the highest contents of humus and better condensation degrees and stabilities, followed by that of Populus simonii, Larix principisrupprechtii and Ulmus pumila pure forests, while the soil of Pinus tabuliformis pure forest had the lowest content of humus, condensation degree and stability. There were significant positive correlations between soil microorganism biomass, activity of phosphatase and the content and stability of soil humus. In contrast, the soil peroxidate, dehydrogenase activity and soil humus content showed significant negative correlations with each other. Furthermore, the enhancement of dehydrogenase activity might decrease the stability of humus. There were significant positive correlations between available N and the content and stability of soil humus, but total Cu, Zn and Fe had negative correlations with them, and total Cu and Fe might reduce the stability of humus as well. The particularity of pure forest environment and litter properties might be the key inducement to soil humus differentiation, thus reforming the pure forest through mixing with other tree species or planting understory vegetation would be the fundamental way to improve the soil humus composition and stability.