No abstract

Urbanization results to a wide spread of Technosols. Various materials are used for Technosols’ construction with a limited attention to their ecosystem services or disservices. The research focuses on the integral assessment of soil-like materials used for Technosols’ construction in Moscow megalopolis from the ecosystem services’ perspective. Four groups of materials (valley peats, sediments, cultural layers, and commercial manufactured soil mixtures) were assessed based on the indicators, which are integral, informative, and cost-effective. Microbial respiration, C-availability, specific respiration, community level physiological profile, and Shannon’ diversity index in the materials were compared to the natural reference to assess and rank the ecosystem services and disservices. The assessment showed that sediments and low-peat mixtures (≤30% of peat in total volume) had a considerably higher capacity to provide C-sequestration, climate regulation and functional diversity services compared to peats and high-peat mixtures. Urban cultural layers provided ecosystem disservices due to pollution by potentially toxic elements and health risks from the pathogenic fungi. Mixtures comprising from the sediments with minor (≤30%) peat addition would have a high potential to increase C-sequestration and to enrich microbial functional diversity. Their implementation in urban landscaping will reduce management costs and increase sustainability of urban soils and ecosystem.

<p>Microbilogical properties of urban soils were studied in Syktyvkar town (Komi Republic), in the taiga zone of Russia. Within the settlement, two different types of functional zones were compared: transport (roadside areas with limited influence of traffic and highway area) and recreation areas (parks). The soils of parks are man-changed urban soils, whereas the soils of roadside areas were mainly man-made or considerably disturbed. The investigated soils were formed on the cultural layer or buried soils and sediments of various genesis. The soil profiles included a humus-accumulative horizon in the top part, followed by an anthropogenically transformed part, underlain by a slightly modified parent rock.</p><p>The highest number of species was determined in the soils of recreational areas, including 33 species of microscopic fungi. Soils of the transport area contained 22 species. The higher number of species is associated with the development of specific for urban zone fungal complex and partial preservation of natural zonal species of fungi, mainly representatives of Penicilliumgenus. Non-typical for the taiga zone species from Aspergillus and Fusariumgenera were frequently noted. Highway areas with intensive traffic were characterized by the dominance of dark-colored melanin-containing fungi, which are conditional pathogens for humans, and increasing presence of sterile mycelium – indicator of soil disturbance. Stenotopic species which are typical for undisturbed zonal conditions were rarely isolated.</p><p><strong>Acknowledgements </strong>The experimental research was partly supported by Russian Science Foundation project № 19-77-30012.</p>