Nitrification as Ecotoxicological Endpoint in Risk Assessment of Soil Heavy Metal Pollution
硝化作用作为生态毒性指标评价土壤重金属污染生态风险

The establishment of standards for estimating soil quality is an important area in studies of soil pollution. At present, there are some ecotoxicological endpoints for assessing the risk in soil microbial process, including soil biomass, soil respiration, enzyme activity, nitrification and N fixation etc. Mitigating the problems associated with heavy metal pollution of soils is our important subject in environmental field. Because of its sensitivity to heavy metal and the key role in global N cycle, nitrification has been widely used in estimating heavy metal toxicity. This paper summarizes recent studies in the mechanism, application and the factors affecting nitrification.