Rhizosphere soil enzymatic and microbial activities in bamboo forests in southeastern China

Bamboo has been introduced to coastal sandy areas in southeastern China to protect and restore coastal ecosystems. An understanding of the chemistries and enzymatic and microbial activities in the soils of these bamboo forests will aid our understanding of how bamboo plantations can improve soil fertility and will provide scientific evidence for policy makers for encouraging the planting of bamboo in other coastal areas. We investigated the physical and chemical properties of the rhizosphere soil soil moisture content (SMC), pH, and contents of soil organic matter (SOM), total nitrogen (TN), available nitrogen (AN), total phosphorus (TP), available phosphorus (AP), total potassium (TK) and available potassium (AK)], enzymatic activities (sucrase, protease, urease and catalase) and microbial properties (counts of bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes) in five bamboo forests. The bamboo forests had significantly higher levels of SOM, TN, AN, TP, AP, TK, and AK and lower pH relative to a control soil sample from an area devoid of plants. Soil enzymatic activities and microbial communities were considerably higher in the bamboo forests than in the soil from the barren land. The chemical contents, enzymatic activities and microbial counts of the soil and the litter and root biomasses were higher in forests with the bamboo species Dendrocalamopsis oldhami and Pseudosasa amabilis than in forests with the other three species (Acidosasa edulis, Dendrocalamopsis vario-striata, and Dendrocalamopsis beecheyana var. pubescens), which suggests that these two species could adapt to sandy soil and grow well in a hostile environment. These results indicate that planting bamboo may help to both enrich soil fertility and increase the diversity of tree species in coastal ecosystems. The difference between aboveground and belowground biomass may have been responsible for these changes in soil properties.