Diagnostic role of soil physical properties of forest biogeocoenoses of the Ukrainian steppe zone

Abstract

For the current stage of the development of soil science it is relevant to search for objectively existing interactions between the various soil properties. Solving this issue most appropriately should be based on the establishment of pedotransfer functions. Pedotransfer functions appeared at the time of the birth of quantitative soil science, when one of the properties of the soil tried to predict others when it became clear that everything in the soil is interrelated when it was established that there is a well-defined number of fundamental, basic properties of the soil, which is basically defines its other properties. Accordingly, the purpose of our work is to establish the diagnostic value of the individual soil physical properties of forest biogeocoenoses of the steppe by means of determining the existing interconnections between them and other properties and characteristics of these soils. The solution of this issue is one of the tasks of developing research on the soil physical properties of forest biogeocoenoses of the Ukrainian steppe zone. The diagnostic value of granulometric and structural-aggregate composition, density and permeability for determining the general state of soils due to the existence of certain interactions between the indicated parameters and other soil properties is considered. The granulometric composition is a fundamental soil characteristic that determines not only the physical state, but also all the main soil properties and regimes of forest biogeocoenoses of the Ukrainian steppe zone. The structural and aggregate composition is an important complex diagnostic feature of chernozem, which helps to reveal the peculiarities of their genesis under the influence of forest vegetation, in particular as a result of changes in the content and composition of organic matter, exchange cations, the influence of root vegetation systems, etc. The soil density, due to existing interactions with other soil properties, is an important diagnostic feature that reflects the features of their genesis and regimes, which determines the specificity of the ecological functions of the soils of forest biogeocoenoses of the Ukrainian steppe zone. Water permeability can be considered as a complex characteristic of soils, which to a certain extent reflects their granulometric composition, porosity, structural and aggregate composition, determines the features of the water-air regime. The differences of physical properties of zonal chernozems and chernozems, the genesis of which are connected with artificial and natural forest biogeocoenoses within the steppe zone of Ukraine, are analyzed. The relevance of the further search for relationships between physical indicators that are easily and promptly analyzed, and other soil properties for expanding diagnostic possibilities with respect to their genesis is pointed out.