Soil biological characteristics at different slope positions of apple orchards on the Loess Plateau——A case study of Chunhua County, Shaanxi Province
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DOI:10.7606/j.issn.1000-7601.2017.05.14
Key Words: slope position  soil organic matter  soil enzyme activities  soil microbial biomass  soil microbial community
Author NameAffiliation
ZHANG Chao College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China 
ZHANG Hai College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China 
ZHAI Hui College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China 
ZHOU Xu College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China 
LI Ai-mei College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China 
ZHANG Li-xin College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China 
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Abstract:
      To investigate the effects of slope positions on soil biological characteristics in apple orchards in the Loess Plateau, a field study in Fuji apple orchards in Chunhua County in Shaanxi Province was used to explore the soil organic matter content, soil enzyme activities (catalase, urease, invertase and alkaline phosphatase) and soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen on different slope positions (upper slope, middle slope, lower slope) in the 0~20, 20~40 cm and 40~60 cm soil layers, respectively. Biolog-ECO technology was applied to study the metabolic functional diversity of microbial communities. The results showed that the soil organic matter content was generally poor and deferent in different slope positions with the order of lower slope (LS)>upper slope (US)>middle slope (MS). There was no significance in soil catalase activities and microbial biomass with different slopes. Soil catalase activity was LS>MS>US, urease, invertase and alkaline phosphatase activities were in order of LS>US>MS, soil microbial biomass carbon content was in order of US>LS>MS and microbial biomass nitrogen content was in order of LS>MS>US. The AWCD (average well color development) of soil microbial carbon source on different slope positions was in order of LS>US>MS, microbial diversity indexes generally were in order of LS>US>MS. The results of principle component analysis (PCA) showed that carbohydrates and carboxylic acids as the carbon sources held a great contribution to the principal component 1 (PC1) and principal component 2 (PC2). Soil microbial community stability on lower slope was superior. Finding in this study highlighted that the soil quality on lower slope was better and more suitable for planting apple trees and other economic crops.