Earlier studies show that different kind of biological processes occur in the soil of different forest types. These differences may be due differences in microbiology of those soils. This article studies these differences.
Soil samples from five different forest types were collected from the Ruotsinkylä research forest in three different seasons: in January, March and September.
The amount of bacteria in the samples is at the lowest in March and highest in September. During the winter more anaerobic bacteria were found. The amount of denitrifying bacteria is higher in the soil than amount of nitrifying bacteria.
The results indicate that the species composition of soil varies between the forest types in the same manner than the vegetation composition above the soil. However, this study is only a preliminary and more knowledge is needed about the discipline before practical implications can be drawn.
The PDF contains a summary in Finnish.