Biodiagnostics of Soil Quality Using Enchytraeids

Abstract

Biological diagnostics of soil plays a significant role in its quality assessment. The most common indicators of the biological state of the soil are: the number of microorganisms in the soil, the "breathing" of the soil, enzymatic activity (catalase activity, invertase, urease, phosphatase and other enzymes), the intensity of accumulation of free amino acids, the rate of decomposition of urea, the content of phosphorus, humus, carbohydrates, qualitative composition of humus, phytotoxicity of soil, pH, Eh. In order to determine the majority of these indicators, it is necessary to prepare the water extract from the soil. However, the results of the experimental determination of the toxicity of various soil samples according to the wormenchytraeid reaction have shown that this method of preparing a soil sample for analysis is not always effective and often does not allow obtaining reliable results. In particular, the survival rate of worms-enchytraeids, determined in a solid sample of oil-polluted soil, had a lower value than the same index, but determined in the water extract from this soil.