Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2025 number 1

Fire-derived charcoal (charcoal) is a common product of post-fire forest ecosystems. Its role in a litter decomposition is still poorly understood, even less is known about the relationship between charcoal and soil fauna. In a field “litterbag” experiment using physical exclusion of fauna by means of mesh different sizes, the influence of charcoal on microbial activity indices at the early stage of oak leaf decomposition in conditions of faunal community complexity was studied. The response of microorganisms to charcoal addition and faunal community complexity was evaluated using the substrate-induced respiration method in terms of microbial respiration coefficient (BR/SIR) (basal respiration / substrate-induced respiration), microbial metabolic coefficient (qCO₂), and microbial biomass carbon (M_BC). When the faunal community complexity increased from microfauna to mesofauna, regardless of the presence of charcoal, microbial biomass increased by 40 %. In the control treatment, a 21 % decrease in qCO₂ and BR/SIR was observed with access of mesofauna compared to access of microfauna alone. In the charcoal treatment, the decrease in qCO₂ and BR/SIR in the presence of mesofauna was twice as pronounced and amounted to 44 % (p < 0.05), and an acceleration of mass loss by 17 % was also observed. In our study, the decrease in qCO₂ in the presence of mesofauna and its even greater decrease in the charcoal-mesofauna treatment were due to an increase in microbial biomass, but not to an increase in BR. Further complication of the faunal community (access of macrofauna) did not lead to significant changes in microbial activity indices irrespective of charcoal adding.