Português

Abstract

The quality of agricultural environments can be measured in several ways. Some of the representative biological indicators are soil microbial population and activity, which influence chemical and physical attributes. In this aspect, the objective of this study was to evaluate the activity and microbial population in a latosol under different vegetation cover. For that, three areas were used, being: Soy, Eucalyptus and Agroforestry System. Thus, from each cover, soil subsamples were collected, which composed composite samples. The experiments were conducted at the Agricultural Microbiology Laboratory of CECA-UFAL. The microbial activity was evaluated by the isermeyer technique through CO₂ capture and titration. The microbial population was estimated by the isolation and counting of fungi, bacteria and actinomycetes. Data were submitted to analysis of variance (p≤0.05). Thus, it was detected that the soil cultivated with eucalyptus showed the lowest microbial activity, although it had the highest fungal CFU-1 count and also a higher actinomycete count. Vegetation cover influences soil activity and microbial population and can be used as a bioindicator of quality.