Differences of soil enzyme activities and its influencing factors under different flooding conditions in Ili Valley, Xinjiang

Yulu Zhang; Dong Cui; Haijun Yang; Nijat Kasim

doi:10.7717/peerj.8531

Differences of soil enzyme activities and its influencing factors under different flooding conditions in Ili Valley, Xinjiang

PeerJ. 2020 Mar 12:8:e8531. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8531. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yulu Zhang^{1

2}, Dong Cui^{1

2}, Haijun Yang^{1

2

3}, Nijat Kasim¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Biology and Geography Sciences, Yili Normal University, Yining, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, China.
² Institute of Resources and Ecology, Yili Normal University, Yining, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, China.
³ Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Grassland Science, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.

Abstract

Background: A wetland is a special ecosystem formed by the interaction of land and water. The moisture content variation will greatly affect the function and structure of the wetland internal system.

Method: In this paper, three kinds of wetlands with different flooding levels (Phragmites australis wetland (long-term flooding), Calamagrostis epigeios wetland(seasonal flooding) and Ditch millet wetland (rarely flooded)) in Ili Valley of Xinjiang China were selected as research areas. The changes of microbial biomass carbon, soil physical and chemical properties in wetlands were compared, and redundancy analysis was used to analyze the correlation between soil physical and chemical properties, microbial biomass carbon and enzyme activities (soil sucrase, catalase, amylase and urease). The differences of soil enzyme activities and its influencing factors under different flooding conditions in Ili Valley were studied and discussed.

Result: The results of this study were the following: (1) The activities of sucrase and amylase in rarely flooded wetlands and seasonally flooded wetlands were significantly higher than those in long-term flooded wetlands; the difference of catalase activity in seasonal flooded wetland was significant and the highest. (2) Redundancy analysis showed that soil organic carbon, dissolved organic carbon, total phosphorus and soil microbial biomass carbon had significant effects on soil enzyme activity (p < 0.05). (3) The correlation between soil organic carbon and the sucrase activity, total phosphorus and the catalase activity was the strongest; while soil organic carbon has a significant positive correlation with invertase, urease and amylase activity, with a slight influence on catalase activity. The results of this study showed that the content of organic carbon, total phosphorus and other soil fertility factors in the soil would be increased and the enzyme activity would be enhanced if the flooding degree was changed properly.

Keywords: Flooding conditions; Microbial biomass carbon; Soil enzyme activity; Soil physical and chemical properties; Wetland.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Tianshan Youth Program, a special talent program in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region (No.2018Q076). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.