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Decomposition of Meadow and Forest Plant Roots in the Ash Substrate of Power Plant Dumps: A Laboratory Experiment

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Abstract

It is noted that plant roots make a significant contribution to the formation of technozems during self-overgrowing of the technogenic substrate. The rate of decomposition of a mixture of fine roots (<0.5 mm thick) of meadow arbuscular mycorrhiza species (AM) in comparison with forest ecto mycorrhiza species (EM) in the ash substrate from the power station was studied in a 150-day experiment in the laboratory. Differences in the rates of decomposition of root mixtures, as well as in carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) content before and after decomposition in different variations of the experiment, have been revealed. AM species have higher losses of biomass, nitrogen, and carbon in contradistinction to ЕM species.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 18-04-00714. Geobotanical descriptions of plant communities formed as a result of the self-overgrowth of the 50-year ash dump of the VTGES were obtained for fulfillment of state assignment no. 6.7696.2017/8.9 of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yeltsin Ural Federal University, 620083, Yekaterinburg, Russia

    A. A. Betekhtina, O. A. Nekrasova & T. A. Radchenko

  2. Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia

    M. I. Dergacheva

  3. Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 620144, Yekaterinburg, Russia

    V. N. Bolshakov

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  1. A. A. Betekhtina
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  2. O. A. Nekrasova
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  3. M. I. Dergacheva
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  4. T. A. Radchenko
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  5. V. N. Bolshakov
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Correspondence to A. A. Betekhtina.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies involving animals or human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Translated by N. Smolina

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Betekhtina, A.A., Nekrasova, O.A., Dergacheva, M.I. et al. Decomposition of Meadow and Forest Plant Roots in the Ash Substrate of Power Plant Dumps: A Laboratory Experiment. Biol Bull Russ Acad Sci 47, 299–305 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1062359020010033

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1062359020010033

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