Respiratory activity of the soil from several habitats in the Botanical Garden in Poznań.

The paper presents studies on the respiratory activity of the soil from two habitats of the Botanical Garden: the steppe and the dune. The abundance of bacteria and fungi in the soils was also estimated. Respiration in the rhizosphere soil was found to be more intense than in the non-rhizosphere soil. Our observations have shown that soil respiration depends largely on the abundance of microorganisms. Under various habitat conditions, however, the microorganisms populations are characterized by some peculiarities of their metabolic activities. These manifest themselves in differences in respiratory activity of various soils independent of additional easily available energetic material introduced into the soil.