Urban soil research has invoked great interest in recent years. Previous studies were mainly focused on urban soil physics and chemistry, and soil geography to constrain the source, distribution, transport and deposition of pollutants such as heavy metals and health|hazardous organic matter, but little has been done on soil microbiology. In this paper, the authors reported the variation of microbial features in urban soils compared with those from adjacent rural areas. The results show great changes in basal respiration rates, microbial biomass and ecophysiological parameters have taken place in urban environment because of the anthropogenic stress, thus activating the microorganisms. As a result, much more energy carbon is consumed at a low utilization efficiency. So microbial biosensors can be used to indicate urban environmental pollution effectively.
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