Forest soils are being degraded in the worldwide through processes of natural and human disturbances. Soil quality is the evaluation indicators of whether soil functions are well or not. However, forest soil indicators are more than 100 including physical, chemical, and biological indicators. Which set of soil indicators best represents soil quality is ambiguous.

Dr. Yang Kai and Diao Mengmeng from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, under the guidance of Prof. Zhu Jiaojun, together with Yang’s colleagues Dr. Lu Deliang and Dr. Zhang Weidong, have revealed forest soil quality through comparison between paired plantations versus natural forests, using natural forests as references.

They found that total carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), microbial biomass C (MBC) and N (MBN), fungal biomass, bacterial biomass, and hydrolytic enzymes, can explain 76.8% of soil quality, indicating that these sensitive indicators can represent soil quality. This study also highlights forest soil quality deteriorated in plantation forests when stand ages are less than 25 years. Furthermore, soil quality was more deteriorated in the plantation of coniferous trees than that plantation of broadleaved trees.

Collectively, this study demonstrated soil quality indicators in forest ecosystems. Future assessing forest soil restoration and forest management should consider not only timber productivity but also soil quality to sustain forest ecosystems in the long term.

This work has been published in Land Degradation and Development entitled "A global meta-analysis of indicators for assessing forest soil quality through comparison between paired plantations versus natural forests" and it was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China.

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YUE Qian

Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences 

Tel: 86-24-83970324 

E-mail: yueqian@iae.ac.cn  

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