Cellulose Decomposition in Soil Burial Beds: II. Cellulolytic Activity as Influenced by Alteration of Soil Properties.

Microbiological breakdowin of cellulose materials in soil as influenced by the soil environment is of interest to both agriculture and industry. The need for better understanding of possible effects due to variations in soil used as a component of soil burial beds led to investigations on the cellulolytic activities of diverse mineral soils. An accompanying paper (Schmidt and Ruschmeyer, 1958) reported studies of the physical, chemical, and microbiological properties of 21 soils in relation to cellulolytic activity. It was found that soil reaction and soil nitrogen relationships varied most consistently together with the cellulose decomposing ability of a soil. The present report provides additional evidence for the importance of these environmental factors to the cellulose decomposing microflora as demonstrated by studies in which cellulolytic response to simple soil amendments was measured.