Post-fire transformation of the microbial complexes in soils of larch forests in the lower Angara River region

The postfire transformation of the functional activity of the microbial cenoses and the main soil properties under mixed larch forests were studied in the lower reaches of the Angara River. It was shown that the intensity of the postfire changes in the population density, biomass, and activity of the microorganisms in the dark podzolized brown forest soil depended on the degree of burning of the ground cover and the surface litter during the fire. The maximum effects of the fire on the microbial cenoses were observed in the litter and the upper 5-cm-thick layer of the dark-humus horizon in the areas of intense burning. The postfire restoration of the structural-functional activity of the microbial cenoses was determined by the degree of transformation of soil properties and by the postpyrogenic succession in the ground cover. The microbial complexes of the dark podzolized brown forest soils under mixed larch forests in the studied region restored their functional activity after the fires of different intensities quicker than the microbial cenoses of the sandy podzols in the pyrogenic lichen-green-moss pine forests of the same zone.