Studies on vertical distribution of soil algae in lawn

Abstract

The vertical distributions of soil algae were studied on 45 soil specimens collected from three areas, namely, lawn, grassland and bare land in Chugoku District and neighbor. Each columnar soil sample, in about 10 cm length, in 1 cm diameter was furthermore divided into samples in 1 cm length. Each divided sample was used for isolation of soil algae. After four weeks cultivation, total 49 algal species belonging to 25 genera were isolated from soil samples. Amounts of algal cells in soil samples differed among the samples and usually decreased with increase in depth of soil. However, compared with the three investigation areas, lawn area was not characterized by vertical distribution of soil algae. Some species were mainly isolated from near soil surface samples. Those species belonged to Cyanophyceae, Chlorophyceae and Ulvophyceae. Klebsormidium flaccidum belonged to Ulvophyceae was seemed to be one of the pioneer plants in vegetation succession. Phormidium spp. and Nostoc spp. giving trouble to lawn grass were isolated from all most all the samples. This fact suggest that control of Phormidium spp. and Nostoc spp. are necessary for maintenance of lawn. Moreover, algae were isolated from 40 cm and 80 cm depth of land. This fact was newly reported as vertical distribution of algae.