Abstract: Soil microbial biomass, respiration, and metabolic quotient are the sensitive indicators of soil quality. The measurement of these variables in evergreen broadleaf forest (EBF), coniferous forest (CF), dwarf forest (DF), and alpine meadow (AM) along an altitudinal gradient in the natural reserve area in Wuyi Mountain of Fujian Province showed that soil microbial biomass and respiration increased with increasing altitude but decreased with soil depth, while soil microbial metabolic quotient qMB and qCO2 had no definite variation pattern along the altitudinal gradient. The qMB was the highest (223%±028%) in 0〖KG-*2〗-〖KG-*7〗10 cm soil layer in AM and the lowest (051%±009%) in 25〖KG-*2〗-〖KG-*7〗40 cm soil layer in EBF, and CF had a higher qMB than DF. The qCO2 was the highest (588%±094%) in 25〖KG-*2〗-〖KG-*7〗40 cm soil layer in CF and the lowest (138%±009%) in 0〖KG-*2〗-〖KG-*7〗10 cm soil layer in AM. In the same stands, qMB decreased with increasing soil depth, while qCO2 was not. Soil microbial biomass, respiration, qMB, and qCO2 had significant linear correlations with soil total organic carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorous (P<005), being possible to be used as the good indicators to assess soil quality.

Key words: Aldicarb, Sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate, Zebrafish embryo, DNA damage and repair