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Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology ›› 2017, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (6): 1779-1785.doi: 10.13287/j.1001-9332.201706.031

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Effects of naphthalene on soil respiration, nutrients and enzyme activities in the subalpine forest of western Sichuan, China

YANG Fan1,2, YANG Wan-qin1,2, WU Fu-zhong1,2, WANG Hui1,2, LAN Li-ying1,2, LIU Yu-wei1,2, GUO Cai-hong1,2, TAN Bo1,2,3*   

  1. 1Institute of Ecology &Forestry, Sichuan Agricultural University/Sichuan Province Key Laboratory of Forestry Ecological Engineering in Upper Reaches of Yangtze River/Alpine Forest Ecosystem Research Station/Sichuan Pro-vince Key Laboratory of Soil and Water Conservation and Desertification Control, Chengdu 611130, China
    2Collaborative Innovation Center of Ecological Security in the Upper Reaches of Yang-tze River, Chengdu 611130, China
    3Sichuan Province Key Laboratory of Ecological Security and Protection, Mianyang 621000, Sichuan, China
  • Received:2016-11-09 Published:2017-06-18
  • Contact: *E-mail:bobotan1984@163.com
  • Supported by:
    This word was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31500509, 31570445, 31500358), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Universities (20135103110002), the Youth Project of Sichuan Provincial Department of Education (14ZB0001), the Open Foundation Project of Key Laboratory of Ecological Security and Protection in Sichuan Province (ESP201309, ESP1404), and the Project of Research Interest Training in Sichuan Agricultural University (20150214)

Abstract: As a biocide to reduce soil and litter faunal populations in field experiments, naphthalene has been widely used in the study of ecological functions of soil fauna, but the non-target effects of naphthalene bring about enormous uncertainty to its application. In order to understand whether there were non-target effects of naphthalene in subalpine forest soil, soil in the subalpine forests of west Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was taken as study object. The short-term responses of soil respiration rate, nutrient content and enzyme activity to naphthalene were studied in microcosms. The results showed that soil respiration rate was significantly suppressed by application of naphthalene within 0-10 days, and then showed a significant promotion effect. Naphthalene significantly affected the dynamics of soil NH4+-N and NO3--N contents. With application of naphthalene, the highest contents of NH4+-N and NO3--N occurred at the 3rd and 7th day, respectively. But they were observed at the 45th and 52nd day with no-naphthalene, respectively. Moreover, soil dissolved carbon content in the naphthalene microcosms showed a sharp increase and then decrease dynamic at the 3rd day, while small change was detected in the no-naphthalene microcosms. Dissolved nitrogen content in both the naphthalene and no-naphthalene microcosms showed an increase at first and then decreased subsequently during the study period. Similar dynamics were found for the soil enzyme activities in both the naphthalene and no-naphthalene microcosms. The highest activities of urease, nitrate reductase and nitrite reductase in both the naphthalene and no-naphthalene microcosms were at the 45th, 38th and 10th day, respectively. In addition, the interaction of naphthalene treatment and sampling time had significant effects on soil respiration rate, the contents of NH4+-N, NO3--N and dissolved nitrogen, but had no significant effects on soil dissolved carbon content, and the activities of invertase, nitrate reductase and nitrite reductase. In a short time, the non-target effect of naphthalene as a biocide to reduce soil fauna abundance might have an important influence on the soil nitrogen cycling in subalpine forest of western Sichuan.