Humification natural environments

COMPARISON OF THE MECHANISMS AND SIGNIFICANCE OF BIOTIC AND ABIOTIC CATALYSES OF HUMIFICATION REACTIONS IN NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS... 

The Significance of Biotic and Abiotic Catalysts in Synthetic Humification Reactions in Natural Environments... 

Soil and related environments are both an important natural habitat of biota and a natural reservoir of biotic debris consisting of plant remains and dead animals and microorganisms. With time, dead remains are subject to continuous turnover, either mineralized or transformed to diverse organic components which are termed humus. This process is referred to as humification. Humus is composed of humic substances plus nonhumic substances that have become stabilized and are thus an integral part of soil and related environments (Table 2.1). 

The formation of humic substances in a peatland environment is a complex humification process which is principally due to certain enzymatic and microbial activities. These organic matter transformation processes are influenced by the nature of the peat-forming plants and certain physical and chemical properties within a particular peatland. In very acidic or low nutrient peatlands a very different microflora may exist than in a more eutrophic and less wet situation. In the former situation humification may be retarded and the peatland plants will be preserved and thus accumulate. On the other hand, in less acid environments with moderate amounts of nutrients and periodic water-table fluctuations humification proceeds relatively rapidly and leads to decomposed organic soils such is the case in drained and cultivated organic soils. 

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