Microbiological properties of Alumo-siliceoous soil under natural grasslands

Abstract

Considering that the numbers of certain groups of microorganisms can serve to determine the soil production properties, the aim of this paper was to establish the biological character of the humus- siliceous soils under the Mt. Zlatibor natural grasslands based upon monitoring of the total of microorganisms and the numbers of actinomycetes, oligonitrophils and ammonifiers. Microbiological and agrochemical soil properties were investigated in four Zlatibor localities, using standard laboratory methods. The study results indicate that the total number of microorganisms significantly correlated to the humus and total nitrogen contents (r=0.65) in the soil of the localities investigated. The negative correlation between the content of the readily available nickel and the numbers of ammonifiers (r=-0.77) and oligonitrophilic bacteria (r=-0.72) points to significant sensibility of these groups of microorganisms towards increased concentrations of the heavy metal in the soil. The variability of the chemical soil properties exerted the smallest effect on the soil actinomycetes numbers.