Spatio-temporal variation in soil microbial biomass and enzymatic activity in different forest ecosystem of North-India

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Year 2016 Vol 5 Issue 2
Document Type : ORIGINAL ARTICLE
¹Lovy Raj Chandra ²Surabhi Gupta ³Veena Pande ⁴Nandita Singh
¹Plant Ecology and Environmental Science Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow-226 001, Uttar Pradesh, India
²Plant Ecology and Environmental Science Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow-226 001, Uttar Pradesh, India
³Department of Biotechnology, Bhimtal Campus, Kumaun University, Nainital-263136, Uttarakhand, India
⁴Plant Ecology and Environmental Science Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow-226 001, Uttar Pradesh, India
Abstract
The present study compared the soil microbial biomass, enzymatic activity and the nutrient accessibility under different location covering dry deciduous and temperate forest of North-India. Also, the temporal variation was evaluated for two consecutive years during the pre and post monsoon season.


The results indicated significant temporal and spatial variation among the soil characteristics and the availability of nutrients. Soil microbial biomass carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous ranged from 151.63 - 471.1, 36.56 - 88.68 and 15.73 - 62.18 µg g-1. Acid phosphatese activity was highest in forest stand 4 and lowest in forest stand 1, while the value of ßglucosidase activity was recorded maximum at forest stand 5 i.e. 1514.95 µg g-1 h-1 whereas the lower value was in forest stand 1 i.e. 582.23 µg g-1 h-1. Furthermore, the dehydrogenase(DHA) activity ranged from 38.61 - 497.78 µg g-1 h-1 and 158.14 - 707.37 µg g-1 h-1 for the two seasons with lowest value at forest stand 1 and highest at forest stand 4. Similarly, the estimated protease and flurosceindiacetate (FDA) activity was high at forest stand 4. Comparison among different soil properties was markedly higher during the pre-monsoon season and it decreases along the forest stand located in dry deciduous region during the study period. Conclusion: The higher microbial biomass and enzymatic activities at forest stand resides in temperate region suggested the higher nutrient availability and soil fertility in temperate forest.
Keywords
: Microbial biomass soil enzymes spatial temporal forest soil inorganic nutrients. @
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