Changing of soil properties and urease–catalase enzyme activity depending on plant type and shading

Abstract

Changes in urease and catalase enzyme activities were investigated in the soils of plants grown under different shade conditions to reveal how the shade conditions and sapling species affect the urease and catalase enzyme activities in the soil. In this study, four different plant species were grown under five different shade conditions during one vegetation period, and soil analyses were performed to investigate the change in urease and catalase enzyme activities. As a result, it was determined that, of the soil characteristics considered, urease, EC, lime, OM, P, and K differed significantly according to the plant species, while catalase, urease, EC, and OM differed significantly according to the amount of light. In addition, it was found that soil characteristics showed different levels of variation depending on the light in the areas where different plant species were grown. The amount of light was linearly correlated with EC and with OM, while catalase and urease were in a linear relationship with each other. EC was statistically significantly correlated with all the characteristics except urease; this relationship was negative with light, P, and K. The strongest relationship was between lime (CaOH) and OM.