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Nitrification in Eutrophic Peat Soils under Different Land-Use Management Practices

  • SOIL BIOLOGY
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Abstract

We have analyzed the distribution of soil properties and the intensity of net nitrification in the profiles of eutrophic peatlands on the Yakhroma River floodplain (Moscow region, Russia) under 4 land-use types: a near-pristine birch forest, postagrogenic reforestation, and regular plowing for more than 50 and 100 years. The type of land use exerts a significant impact on the content of organic carbon, total nitrogen, the C/N ratio, as well as on the content of nitrates and the net nitrification rate only in the upper peat layers (0–20 and 20–40 cm). The effect of the land-use type on the processes of nitrogen cycle in soil is caused by changes in the quantity, quality, and regularity of the input of fresh plant debris. It has been revealed that nitrification is the main process of microbiological transformation of nitrogen compounds in euthrophic peatlands, irrespectively of the type of their use; plowed peatlands being characterized by a lower nitrification rate as compared to peatlands under forests. The intensity of autotrophic nitrification is higher than the heterotrophic one in the forest peatland and is similar to it in agrogenic and postagrogenic peatlands. The first stage of autotrophic nitrification is mainly performed by ammonium-oxidizing archaea, while the number of copies of the amoA gene of ammonium-oxidizing bacteria is by 1–2 orders of magnitude lower.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors are grateful to Senior research scientist of the Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute (Moscow), Cand. Sci. (Biol.) A.K. Tkhakakova for the performance of the quantitative polymerase chain reaction.

Funding

The experimental part of the work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 20-74-00023. The data obtained were generalized within the framework of state assignment of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Russian Federation (theme no. 121040800321-4. Indicators of Transformation of Biogeochemical Cycles of Biogenic Elements in Natural and Anthropogenic Ecosystems).

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  1. Lomonosov Moscow state University, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    M. N. Maslov & L. A. Pozdnyakov

  2. Institute of Molecular Genetics, National Research Center Kurchatov Institute, 123182, Moscow, Russia

    O. A. Maslova

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Maslov, M.N., Pozdnyakov, L.A. & Maslova, O.A. Nitrification in Eutrophic Peat Soils under Different Land-Use Management Practices. Eurasian Soil Sc. 55, 1095–1105 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229322080105

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