title: Monitoring microbial biomass and respiration in different soils from the Czech Republic--a summary of results.
abstract: The microbial biomass (Cbio), respiration (basal respiration (BR) and potential respiration (PR)), and derived indices for 520 independent soil samples of 117 different soils from the Czech Republic were statistically analysed. The broad range of soil samples allowed the stepwise breakdown of the database into six reasonable categories of soil: arable soils, loamy grassland soils, sandy grassland soils with weak organic matter content, sandy grassland soils with moderate organic matter content, forest soils with moderate organic matter content, and forest organic soils with rich organic matter content. Because soil microbiology lacks benchmarking values, the ranges of the microbial characteristics for these categories were stated and are presented here. The separation into soil groups narrowed the ranges enough to be useful for comparative purposes. The groups displayed significant differences in basal microbial parameters. The lowest microbial biomass was found in arable soils and grassland sandy soils with weak organic matter content. The highest microbial biomass was shown by loamy grassland soils and organic forest soils. Respiration displayed similar results to the microbial biomass. The derived indices revealed less significant differences confirming their inner-standard nature. The relationships between the soil contamination and microbial parameters were not explored because of the confounding effect of soil organic matter. However, it was not shown by the category of grassland sandy soils with weak organic matter content suggesting they could be especially suitable for the biomonitoring of harmful effects of chemicals on soil microorganisms.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Science, Research Centre for Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Centre of Excellence, Masaryk University of Brno, Kamenice 126/3, 62500 Brno, Czech Republic. hofman@recetox.muni.cz
authors.forename: Jakub
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hofman
authors.forename: Ladislav
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dusek
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Klánová
authors.forename: Jitka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bezchlebová
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Holoubek
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis; D018153:Czech Republic; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004787:Environmental Pollution; D012987:Soil / Q000032:analysis*; D012988:Soil Microbiology / Q000592:standards*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D002245:Carbon Dioxide