干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

A comparative study of the microbial communities of the buried soils under the Anna Ioannovna mound (1718-1720) and the modern soils developed on different geomorphic positions (watershed, slope, and high floodplain) in the Sakarka River basin (the Privolzhskaya Upland) in the dry steppe zone was performed. The varying soil and ecological conditions of the different relief features were established to dictate the differences in the characteristics of the microbial community of the buried and modern soils, in particular, concerning the number of microorganisms belonging to different trophic groups (those restricted to sparse nutrients, humus-consuming ones, and those utilizing easily available organic matter), the ecologo-trophic structure, and the mycelia biomass and structure (the ratio between the light- and dark-colored hyphae). On the basis of the dispersion analysis, a qualitative estimation of the relief features’ impact on the spatial variations of the microbiological parameters of the soils under study is presented.