Arazi Kullanımı ve Arazi Kullanım Değişimlerinin Toprak Mikrobiyel Biyokütle Değişimleri Üzerine Etkileri


Prof. Dr. OĞUZ CAN TURGAY

Tez Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Niigata University, Ziraat Fakültesi, Toprak Bilimi Laboratuvarı, Japonya

Tez Danışmanı: Nonaka Masanori

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2002

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Desteklendiği Program: Diğer

Özet:

In the present study, the I examined the impacts of soil management and land-use changes on microbial biomass and soil ergosterol content in two different investigations.

In the first study, effects of management practices on microbial biomass and soil ergosterol content were studied in Japanese Andosols. Although the relationships between agricultural practices and microbial biomass have been documented well, there is a lack of information on microbial biomass and especially on ergosterol content of Japanese Andosols. The objective of the first study is therefore to elucidate the relationships between management practices, microbial biomass and soil ergosterol content in a group of Japanese soils under permanent forest, grassland, fruit production and annual crop production in Niigata Prefecture, Japan.

In the second study, I investigated microbial biomass and ergosterol content in a group of Indonesian soils, which have been suffering from drastic land-use changes due to the transmigration policy for the last two decades. Transmigration is an Indonesian Government program whereby people from overpopulated areas within the archipelago, such as Java, are relocated to less populated areas, such as Sumatra Island. However considerable resources have been wasted in settling people who have not been able to move beyond subsistence level, with extensive damage to the environment by destroying forests. In the past two decades, the area covered by primarily forest decreased by 44% whereas, coffee-planted areas increased by 60% in South Sumatra, Indonesia. In the second study, my objective was to clarify the effect of intensive land-use changes on microbial biomass in forest, deforested, coffee-planted, bush regrowth and traditional orchard soils located in a hilly area in Lampung Province, South Sumatra, Indonesia.

 

  My results showed that microbial biomass and ergosterol content were larger in the order of intensive crop production < permanent pasture < forest. Forest soils have a larger biomass pool because the main source of organic input to the biomass in natural ecosystems is from plant material, consisting of roots, leaf and stem litter and actual biomass pool does not change except for the effects of seasonal changes. Larger biomass and ergosterol content in pasture and orchard soils compared to intensively cropped soils are probably related to the management practices such as leaving residue on the soil surface after harvest and very low field traffic. These treatments result in higher concentrations of soluble organic compounds and relatively stabile nutrient flow which may result in the enhancement of microbial biomass. Lower microbial biomass and ergosterol content in intensively cropped soils are probably due to fact that intensive cultivation and conventional tillage alter nutrient input-output frequently and cause significant disturbance to soil microorganisms. Seasonal observations indicated that microbial biomass did not show a significant change, especially in permanent grassland soils where microbial biomass should have been in equilibrium with local management and conditions. This observation is consistent with those suggested by several authors who reported that fertilizer amendments did not affect the amount of microbial biomass because microbial is largely derived from a stabilized form of organic matter and short-term fluctuations created by flushes of labile forms of nutrients in long-established permanent grassland soils. In contrast to the microbial biomass, seasonal changes in soil ergosterol content were significant in most of the soils. These findings demonstrate that even though seasonal changes may not affect the actual size of total microbial biomass, soil ergosterol content can be ascribed to a sensitive parameter showing the effects of seasonal changes on fungal biomass. Although soil ergosterol content showed clear distinctions between intensively cropped and permanent grassland or orchard soils, no meaningful relationship could be observed in the respect of management practices between similarly or differently treated soils sites. This can be due to interspecific variations of ergosterol content between fungal communities and different fertilization periods in different soil sites.