[Variation characteristics of soil microbial activities in the Tarim Desert Highway shelter forests, Xinjiang of Northwast China].

By the methods of Biolog, fumigation extraction, and colorimetric titration, this paper determined the soil carbon sources metabolic intensities, microbial biomass, and enzyme activities in the Tarim Desert Highway shelter-forests with different plantation times, and analyzed the variation characteristics of soil microbial activities in these shelter forests. With the increasing planting years of the shelter forests, the soil microbial metabolic activities (AWCD) and microbial diversity indices enhanced obviously, but the AWCD values in different soil layers had no significant differences. The soil catalase activity among the forests had no significant difference, but the soil cellulase and sucrase activities varied significantly. The soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen increased with the increasing planting years of the shelter forests, having a significant difference among the forests, but the microbial biomass phosphorus had no significant difference. The AWCD values had significant correlations with soil available nutrient contents, but less correlations with soil bulk density and moisture content. It was suggested that under the present management patterns and climate conditions, the soil metabolic activities in the Tarim Desert Highway shelter forests would be improved continuously with the increasing planting years of the forests.