Microbial indicators of soil health as tools for ecological risk assessment of a metal contaminated site in Brazil

Changes in soil microbial community functionality and structure in a metal-polluted site: The effect of digestate and fly ash applications

“…Soil enzymes can be used to assess the effectiveness of the soil reclamation, as soil enzymes allow us to get insight into the biogeochemical cycling of elements in the soil (P erez- Mora et al, 2006;Niemeyer et al, 2012). Dehydrogenase activity represents a biological parameter associated with living cells (Wolinska and Stepniewska, 2012).…”

Assessing microbial activities in metal contaminated agricultural volcanic soils – An integrative approach

“…These microbial activities can be used as indicators of soil quality to monitor soil metal contamination (Niemeyer et al, 2012;Xian et al, 2015) and agricultural soil management practices (Bowles et al, 2014;Pandey et al, 2015). Despite the numerous field studies demonstrating the adverse effects of metal contamination on soil microbial activities (Kuperman and Carreiro, 1997;Antunes et al, 2011;Niemeyer et al, 2012), there is a lack of knowledge regarding the soil microbial responses to chronic metal contamination when soils are naturally enriched with trace metals and have been extensively used for agricultural purposes, such as in agricultural volcanic soils (Andosols). Due to their volcanic heritage, these soils are naturally enriched with a high range of trace metals (Doelsch et al, 2006;Parelho et al, 2014).…”

Response of soil physical properties and dehydrogenase activity to contrasting tillage systems

“…Most microorganisms are chemoorganotrophic, because they use organic carbon as a source of carbon and energy. Therefore, the higher organic carbon levels have been found to support greater enzyme activities in soils (Niemeyer et al, 2012;Gajda et al, 2013). Also, in this study the correlation between the content of organic carbon and soil DHA was strong (P < 0.01, r = 0.94) ( Table 4).…”