Investigation of linear correlations between soil indicators

Sammanfattning

The soil is an important part of the world that contributes to ecosystem servicessuch as food production, water purification, and protection from climate changes.Despite that, knowledge and understanding of the structure and functions of the soilsystem is deficient. The world faces challenges related to crop production and foodconsumption. These challenges are predicted to become even greater in the future.An increased understanding, will contribute to the work to assess the status of soilsand preserve or regain the functions from soil. The aim of this study is to increasethe understanding of how soil indicators can be used to describe soil and specificallyto investigate the existence of linear correlations between soil indicators. The investigationincludes calculation of biological soil indicators based on environmentalDNA from The Land Use/Cover Area frame statistical Survey (LUCAS). The calculatedbiological soil indicators are the ratio of gram-positive and gram-negativebacteria, diversity index and presence of actinomycetes bacteria, mycorrhiza formingfungi, and saprotrophic fungi. The data analysis includes regression analysis andprincipal component analysis between the biological soil indicators and characteristicsoil indicators (see Table 4.5). The results indicate that there may be no linearcorrelations between the chosen biological soil indicators and the characteristic soilindicators.