Soil enzyme activity in an old-growth northern hardwood forest: Interactions between soil environment, ectomycorrhizal fungi and plant distribution

Plants and soil microbes produce extracellular enzymes (EE) that catalyze the hydrolysis of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) containing compounds in soil and other enzymes involved in degradation of lignin and cellulose. We explored whether soil enzyme activity involved in carbon (C), N and P cycling were correlated with plant distribution, soil chemical conditions and the identity of fungi colonizing tree roots in an old growth forest remnant. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) was used to determine the presence of root fungi and standard fluorometric analysis was used to determine soil enzyme activities. Soil enzymes were consistently positively correlated with soil C and N, but not CN ratio. Soil P was also correlated with enzyme activity during both June and September sampling. We saw no significant relationships between herbaceous plant cover and enzyme activity in June, but there were significant positive correlations between α-glucosidase and herbaceous plant coverage in September. We also found that some enzymes were significantly correlated with the identity of fungi colonizing tree roots separated from the soil cores. Chitinase and β-glucosidase were positively correlated with the genera Russula and Piloderma while chitinase was negatively correlated with Amanita and Entoloma. In addition, phosphatase was positively correlated with Russula, Meliniomyces and Solenopezia. Our results suggest that enzyme activity in old growth forest soils are affected by a variety of environmental factors, and that herbaceous plants and some root fungi may be associated with sites of elevated or decreased decomposition potential and nutrient cycling.