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Effects of Different Land Types on Soil Enzyme Activity in the Qinghai Lake Region

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Abstract

This study sought to investigate the influence of different land types on soil enzyme activities and identify the driving factors behind it. Three prevalent land cover types and one land use type by Qinghai Lake were selected (original wetland, natural grassland, recovered shrubland, and farmland), and the surface soil at a depth of 0–10 cm was collected for analysis. The results indicated that soil organic carbon, active carbon, dissolved organic carbon, total nitrogen content, microbial biomass, and soil hydrolase activity decreased, whereas phenol oxidase activity increased after converting the wetland into other land types. However, the differences in microbial biomass and enzyme activities between farmland and recovered shrubland were not significant. Similar trends in β-glucosidase and cellobiohydrolase activities were detected and these were more sensitive to the changes in land types. Soil carbon and nitrogen contents were shown to be responsible for the variability in hydrolase activity, with active carbon showing the strongest influence. Wetland conversion induces the loss of soil carbon and nitrogen stock, which may further decrease the availability of organic matter for microbes. A decrease in hydrolase activity and an increase in phenol oxidase activity may indicate shifts in organic carbon bioavailability after wetland conversion.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Editage for English language revision.

Funding

This work was supported by the agency for Monitoring and Evaluation of Ecosystem Services in Qinghai Province, China (grant number 2013-N-556). The funding agency had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the article for publication.

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  1. Yuguo Yang and Ying Yang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, No. 35 Tsinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Yuguo Yang, Ying Yang & Yuqing Geng

  2. Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Center of State Forestry Administration, Beijing, 100714, China

    Guilin Huang, Xueqing Cui & Meng Hou

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  1. Yuguo Yang
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  2. Ying Yang
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Correspondence to Yuqing Geng.

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Yang, Y., Yang, Y., Geng, Y. et al. Effects of Different Land Types on Soil Enzyme Activity in the Qinghai Lake Region. Wetlands 38, 711–721 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-018-1014-9

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