Soil exo-enzyme activities across Europe—The influence of climate, land-use and soil properties

• Activity of eight hydrolytic extra-cellular enzymes quantified across Europe.
• Activity of the enzymes primarily depend on soil organic matter content.
• Activity of the enzymes were not directly related to climate or land-use.

The assessment and monitoring requirements of soil quality have been debated for many years at European and Global scales. To monitor the activity and diversity of microbial communities a number of methods have been applied including the activity of extracellular soil enzymes. Here is the activity of eight hydrolytic extracellular enzymes on 79 sites across Europe measured, the sites are from five different climatic zones with three different land-uses, and they vary in physicochemical characteristics. The results show that the activity of the enzymes primarily depends on soil organic matter and to a lesser extent on pH, while the activities were not related to climate or land-use. Sites were selected to represent a broad spectrum of key soil properties across three different land-uses and five different climatic biogeographical zones across Europe, so the overall conclusion is based on the analysis of soils representing soil characteristics across Europe.