The assessment of the soil mineralization processes along the traffic corridors from urban and rural areas in Romania

Abstract

The soils of the green areas located near the traffic corridors accumulate different pollutants, especially heavy metals, which have an important impact on the  microbial decomposition processes. The extracellular enzymes can be used as an  indicator of the metabolic activity of the microorganism communities. Four  extracellular enzymes - α and β glucosidase, alkaline phosphatase and alanine  aminopeptidase - were assessed in green areas close to the traffic zones in several  urban, peri-urban and rural localities in Romania. The data showed that the highest values of enzymatic activities were registered in rural areas. At the same  time, the spatial dynamics of the studied enzymes revealed an important variability  between the three types of sampled areas, without a clear pattern of  their distribution.