Responses of litter, organic and mineral soil enzyme kinetics to 6 years of canopy and understory nitrogen additions in a temperate forest

Abstract

Increasing atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition could profoundly impact soil carbon, N and phosphorus cycling that are often regulated by extracellular enzymes. The potential activities of enzymes in response to N deposition have been studied extensively, but the kinetic mechanisms in response to canopy and understory N additions in different soil layers are poorly understood. Here, we conducted a six-year-long field manipulation experiment in a temperate deciduous forest to reveal the kinetic characteristics of seven extracellular hydrolytic enzymes in the litter, organic and mineral soil layers in response to canopy and understory N additions. Canopy N addition and understory N addition exerted similar effects on the kinetics parameters (V_max and K_m) of most enzymes under study. The kinetics parameters of most enzymes generally increased in the litter layer but decreased in the organic layer and had little change in the mineral soil layer in response to N addition. In addition, the changed kinetic parameters were mainly correlated with moisture in the litter layer, with pH, substrate properties (TC, TN, DOC and DON) and microbial communities (G⁺, G^-, total bacterial and fungal biomass) in the organic and mineral soil layers. These findings indicate that enzyme kinetics responses to N deposition differ in soil layers with varying determinant factors, and therefore are driven by various physical, chemical and microbial mechanisms.

Keywords: Enzyme kinetics; Hydrolytic enzyme; Microbial community; Nitrogen deposition; Soil layer.