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2M - Monitoring of function and structure (WEP/142) The use of soil enzyme bioassays to evaluate the contamination of two soils from a mine. Loureiro, Susana1, Nogueira, Antonio J. A.1, Soares, Amadeu M. V. M.1, 1 Departamento de Biologia. Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal ABSTRACT- The importance of microbial activity on nutrient cycling in soils is primarily related to ecosystems productivity and quality. Therefore microbial activity can be considered as a good indicator of the degree of pollution of contaminated soils. In this work the activity of 6 soil enzymes (dehidrogenase, acid phosphatase, urease, arylsulfatase, Key words: heavy metals, soil enzymes, contaminated soils, microbial bioassays |
-glucosidase and potential nitrification) in two soils from a Portuguese abandoned mine with different rates of contamination was measured. These activities were also measured in Lufa 2.2 soil, a soil type usually used as a control in other bioassays. The relationship betwen enzimatic activity and contamination level will be discusses. For example, dehidrogenase and phosphatase activities were similar in both soils and urease and arylsulfatase activities were higher in the soil where contaminant levels were higher. The need of some natural soils (as Euro Soils) as control or reference soils is required for comparison and has not being yet achieved in Europe. Even if these results did not reveal directly the level of soil contamination, they were a good help for the understanding of results obtained from other soil bioassays with plants and edaphic organisms, namely contaminants bioavailability.