Journal of Tropical Soils
Vol. 24 No. 1: January 2019

Soil Microbial Activity and Diversity in Response to Soil Chemical Factors in Agricultural Soils

Ishak, Lily (Unknown)
Brown, Philip Hugh (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
02 Jan 2019

Abstract

The role of microbial communities in maintaining soil health is mostly influenced by chemical condition of soil. Microbial communities vary in response to soil chemical factors. The contradictive results from previous findings emphasise that it is difficult to define a pattern of the influence of soil chemical factors on soil microbial diversity and activity. The aim of the study was to assess soil microbial responses to soil chemical factors in agricultural soils. Composite soil (Dermosol order) samples taken from 16 commercial crop sites in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, were chemically and biologically analysed. It was found that bacterial and fungal activity and diversity were significantly affected by soil EC, SOM and NO3-N content, but were not influenced by soil pH, CEC, and Ca:Mg ratio. The diversity of bacterial and fungal communities displayed a positive linear relationship with soil EC, whereas the activity and diversity of these two microbial groups and SOM displayed a significant quadratic relationship. The finding suggested that microbial community was predominantly influenced by SOM content.

Copyrights © 2019






Journal Info

Abbrev

tropicalsoil

Publisher

Subject

Agriculture, Biological Sciences & Forestry Environmental Science

Description

Journal of Tropical Soils (JTS) publishes all aspects in the original research of soil science (soil physic and soil conservation, soil mineralogy, soil chemistry and soil fertility, soil biology and soil biochemical, soil genesis and classification, land survey and land evaluation, land development ...