Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2009 number 2

Historical progress of development and improvement of soil research in West Siberia is considered. The contribution made by the first Siberian researchers in soil science, followers of V. V. Dokuchaev's ideas, is considered. A large amount of work made by expeditions of the Migration Administration and the Commission on Exploration of Natural Productive Forces at the Academy of Sciences is stressed. Special attention is paid to the modern status of the investigations of Siberian soil and the position of the Institute of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry SB RAS in these investigations.

History of formation and the set of methods of the new science, namely ecology of soils, are discussed. The object, subject, positions in the system of sciences and the most urgent problems are defined. The necessity to relate the ecology of soil to the sciences of the biosphere class is justified. Examples illustrating some statements, regularities and laws of the ecology of soil are described. It is shown that different components of soil humus and their ratios have specific connections with the characteristics of climate and fall within quite definite ecological ranges of the existence of soil kinds with different ratios of humic acids.

On the basis of the generalization of literature and our own data characterizing the virgin and ploughed black soil of the Pre-Altay forest-steppe and West Siberian soil provinces, it is concluded that these kinds of black soil comprise the gold fund of the soil of the Novosibirsk Region (NSR): they served and still serve as a reliable basis of the agricultural production in the most highly developed region of West Siberia. However, the black soil of NSR are exposed to increasing erosion destruction. These phenomena, being negative for land tenure, become most strongly pronounced in the regions where the most valuable kinds of black soil - leached and podzolized - are spread. Because of this, soil conservation and natural economic measures are attaining increasingly high importance.

Methods of diagnostics and evaluation of the soil-ecological state of technogenic landscapes (dumps of coal open-pit mines of the Kuznetsk Basin) at different stages of their formation and designing, as well as the methods of determination of soil-ecological efficiency of recultivation are described.

Behavior of iron forms and its differentiation in the soil profile in embryozems of different soil-climatic zones of the Kuznetsky Basin are considered fort he first time as a diagnostic index of the character, intensity and direction of soil processes.

As a result of the investigations carried out during the years 2006-2008 in the high-mountain Chuya depression of Mountainous Altay, the new data on the diversity of the components of soil cover of this territory in light of the new classification of the soils of Russia have been obtained. Some features of the interconnection of soil components with biotic and abiotic constituents of the geosystems of the high-mountain steppe were revealed.

The composition of the soil cover of the Shira steppe lake depressions and the question of microzonal distribution are considered. Peculiarities of the geometric forms of soil structures comprising the soil cover are revealed; the properties of the components composing soil combin

New data on the enzymatic activity of the tundra peaty gleyey soil and permafrost sediments on the Later Pleistocene age (11-25 thousand years ago) are analyzed. It is shown that invertase, protease, phosphatase, catalase, peroxidase are well conserved in yedoma and in buried soil horizons; urease is conserved to a smaller extent. On the basis of the investigation of thermodynamic characteristics of active invertase, such as temperature coefficient and activation energy, it was established that this enzyme is present in soil in the free state and in the bound form (immobilized on the surface of organic-mineral colloids). The degree of immobilization of active invertase in the buries soil horizons is high, which is likely to play an important part in the conservation of its molecules at negative temperatures for a long time.

Effect of various factors and conditions of soil formation on the formation of ring differentiation of the soil cover of the Central Tuva depression is considered.

In the majority of works dealing with the investigation of the water schedule of soils, the objects of observations were single kinds of soil as either point or one-dimension

Lifting of the level of subsoil waters within the limits of the Ishim-Irtysh steppe watershed during the years 1980-2000 is established. The influence of forest belts, roadside cunettes, settlements and tilled micro-depressions on the multi-year dynamics of subsoil water level is considered.

On the basis of large-scale maps based of the data of interpretation of the space aerial photographs and the digital models of the relief, an estimation of the natural-anthropogenic transformation of the typological diversity of the soil cover in the steppe depressions of the Altay-Sayan region is carried out. The boundaries and the information content of the soil contours corrected suing the remote data may be used as the controllable indices in building up the schemes of soil-ecological monitoring.

Divergence value, calculated as the quantitative index of the closeness of probabilistic distributions of soil properties, is used to estimate the degree of differences of soil kinds in connection with the inhomogeneity of soil formation factors, as well with natural and anthropogenic processes. We report the results of the calculations of divergence of humus content in the soils of the dry steppe zone of the south of West Siberia, caused by the difference in granulometric composition, deflation and agricultural use. This allows us to reveal the most vulnerable varieties and to range natural and anthropogenic effects according to the value of their influence on soil properties.

Two aspects of the stability of grass ecosystems are considered theoretically and with specific examples: the ability to maintain the structures and functions, and the ability to recover them after disturbances. The low resistance of the species structure of the grass community and the high stability of the biotic turnover, both its structure and functioning, were demonstrated. In spite of the low resistance, the species structure of the phytocenosis possesses high elasticity, which is expressed in its recovery within a short time interval in the presence of seeds and after removal of the stressing action.

Development of bog formation processes at the southern boundary of the taiga zone in West Siberia is analyzed depending on the cyclic changes of climate, which is depicted in the botanical and chemical composition of peat. It is shown that modern climate warming did not interrupt bog formation which occurs here due to forest underflooding with water of bog massifs and periodic underflooding of floodplain depressions during the cycles in wet years.

The article deals with the studies of the ecological condition of forest-steppe raised sphagnum bogs. The main factors affecting the functional condition and the dynamics of rare disappearing natural object were revealed. On the basis of the facts, the problem of transformations of the unique plant communities was considered. The role of ryam complex bogs in the atmospheric gas exchange processes was discussed in connection with the outlined climatic trend. The need for regular overall tests and monitoring was motivated.

Estimation of the resources of pytomass and nutrition elements deposited in it in a grass bog is given. A comparison between two grass bogs and one sphagnum bog in these parameters is carried out. One of the grass bongs is situated in Russia, other two bogs are in Poland. The comparison showed that the common climatic and geochemical features of the position affect the chemical nature of the phytomass. Grass bogs are richer in nitrogen that sphagnum ones; both Polish bogs have an increased K and decreased

Pool of biogenic ecotoxicants at urban grass plots is considered. The toxobity of the seeds of cultivated plants in water from melted snow and in the filtrates of cultural liquids of mciroorganisms is estimated. Injurious fungi, bacteria and insects are revealed, pathological variations of cyanobacteriae are discovered, the microbiological activity of soil at the sod base and outside it is determined.

Application of the nitrogen schedule of forest and black meadow soil under the action of the genotype of macrosymbiont and the aftereffect of nitrogen fixed by it from the air are investigated. The high efficiency of the precursor pea forms having increased genetically provided activity of the processes of symbiotic nitrogen fixation is revealed. It is discovered that the productivity of wheat plants increases, depending on foregoing crops possessing nitrogen fixing ability, by a factor of 1,4-2,6 in comparison with a mutant devoid of nodules. The aftereffect from various genotypes of pea was not discovered at the second year when making a green conveyer.

By using multivariate statistical analysis, the influence of Scotch pine climatypes on the set of chemical and microbiological properties of soil, i. e. soil C/N, C_mic/C_org and C_mic/N_mic, was revealed in a series of long-term (ca. 30 years) field experiments, established according to a similar set-up scheme under contrasting environmental and soil conditions of Siberian forestries.

The content and distribution of selenium in the soils of Novosibirsk region is investigated. The areas of the possible anomalous selenium content in soils are determined.

Total mercury content in peat soils of different botanic composition was determined. A dependence of mercury content in peat on the general technical characteristics of peat soil was revealed. These characteristics include botanic composition, ash content, decomposition degree and nitrogen, carbon, humic acid content of peat. The possibility of the application of a model describing the distribution of gross mercury in the profile of peat soil of West Siberia over the content of the basic biogenic elements C, N on the basis of Mercury/Biomass concept is demonstrated.

Different methods of the investigation of mobile forms of chemical elements in soil are described. The method of consecutive extractions is considered in detail, a comparative review is presented describing the most frequently extracted fractions of chemical elements (water-soluble, exchangeable, specifically sorbed, carbonate, bound with the organic matter, Fe and Mn oxides/hydroxiles, with aluminosilicates) and extragents used for their extraction. The advantages and disadvantages of various extragents are indicated, methods to increase their selectivity are outlined. The possibility to use the information about the concentrations of the mobile forms of chemical elements in soil for evaluations of the degree of industry-related soil pollution is demonstrated.

Fluorine content in 327 sources of surface, soil-ground and underground water in the south of the territory between the Ob and the Irtysh is investigated. Substantial variations of fluorine concentration in water are revealed; its possible geochemical reasons are considered. A large region with high (> MPC) fluorine concentration in the sources of underground water involved in water supply to settlements was discovered in the western part of the Baraba plain. The values of fluorine to calcium ratios in those water samples provide evidence of the high danger of fluorosis in the population.