The specificities of temperature regime of automorphic clayey soils forming under the suffruticous and shrub vegetation within the zone of tundra and forest tundra in the European North-East were studied. As the objects of investigation we chose the organic cryometamorphic soils and cryometamorphic gleezems; in the both soil types the CRM cryometamorphic horizon is developed. The soils are formed in conditions of long-termed seasonal freezing at the absence (deep occurrence) of the permafrost rocks. The dynamics near the zero temperatures (zero curtains) is characterized. The hypothesis, concerning the role of zero curtains in the sustaining of the specific angular-grainy structure within the mass of cryometamorphic horizons is formulated. The mass of cryometamorphic horizons and the depth of present-day zero curtains, which observed at the long-term seasonal soil freezing, correlate to each other. The impact of suffruticous and shrub vegetation on the specificities of winter and summer soil temperature regime is determined. We discovered that the main differences between the soils developing under suffruticous and shrub vegetation tundras are stipulated by the different intensity of the snow accumulation within these areas. The soils that are developed under the shrub vegetation are warmer than soils developed under the suffruticous tundra, where permafrost may occur at the depth of 2-3 cm. In general, seasonaly freezing tundra soils are located in the middle of the range of the automorphic clay loamy soils in the tundra-taiga ecotone of European North-East of Russia, and occupy the niche between permafrost tundra and non-permafrost north taiga soils.

The position of palevye soils with differentiated profiles and with podzolized horizons developing from carbonate-free rocks under conditions of the cold extremely continental semihumid climate in the permafrost zone of Central Siberia in the New Russian Classification system is analyzed. The profile of these soils consists of the raw-humus horizon, bleached podzolic or eluvial horizon, and iron-illuvial or clay-illuvial horizon with some features typical of the metamorphic pale soils. According to the character of their middle-profile horizons, they can be attributed to the orders of Al-Fe-humus soils (sandy and loamy sandy varieties) and texture-differentiated soils (loamy sandy and clay loamy varieties). According to the character of their organic profiles, they can be separated as raw-humus subtypes among podzols and podzolic soils, respectively. Their specific regional characteristics - a tendency for the formation of a cryohumus horizon, clay illuviation, iron illuviation, and specific pale metamorphism of the mineral mass (pale metamorphized) (clay-illuvial subtype) - are also reflected at the subtype level. These characteristics can be present in different combinations reflected in the corresponding names of complex subtypes. In the geographical space, these soils form a transition from typical pale soils of the cold ultracontinental semiarid climate to the soils of cold moderately continental humid climate.

The results of the four-year study of the temperature regime of soils of three common landscapes of northern taiga in Western Siberia, located in the area of discontinuous permafrost, are presented. The soils of lumpy peatlands are characterized by mild permafrost annual regime with very cold summer and moderately cold winter. Temperature regime of the forest soils may be characterized as cold long-time seasonally freezing mild with very cold summer and moderately cold winter. The soils of the investigated region are functioning in conditions of the narrow range of temperatures: at the depth of 20 cm for the soils of all of the landscapes, the temperatures vary within the range of -2.5 to 0°С. This occurs due to their high moisture, low thermal conductivity, specificities of snow cover regime and the freezing effect of permafrost rocks. Annual temperature soil indices are characterized by the weak correlation to the mean annual specificities of air temperature regime. We discovered the direct correlation of annual soil temperature regime and the dynamics of the snow cover (with average and maximal thickness, and thawing date), and with winter N-factor (surface temperature index), and accumulative positive temperatures. Since isolating activity of the vegetation is significantly lower than that of snow (summer N- factors 0.7-0.9), annual fluctuations of summer air temperatures will significantly affect the temperature regime of soils and geo-cryologic situation of the region in general.

The soil ecologic map of Yamal-Nenets autonomic district reflects the state of the soil cover of the territory of this subject of Russian Federation. The map is created with application of GIS technologies and remote sensing methods. The new information and application of the remote sensing methods allowed us to increase significantly the number of soil contours, verify their borders, manifest the areas of lands, which were disturbed during the hydrocarbon crude mining. We marked the soil contours on the map. These contours show the dominating and accompanying soil types, the structure of the soil cover as soil sequences and complexes. Some layers present the information about the parent rocks and topography conditions for the marked contours. As a separate layer we showed the soil geographic regions, which differ in the composition of the soil cover. The specificities of the regional soil cover is accurately reflected on the soil-ecological map of the district. More than 4000 separations are marked, which show the combinations of soils: sequences, complexes, homogenous areas. The map contains the 4 layers of information about the separations besides the characteristics of the soil cover: texture, topography characteristics, contour area, the relation to soil-geographic region. The territory is divided on 50 soil-geographic regions, which differ by the specificities of the soil cover. The most attention was paid to the lands, which were disturbed by the human activity. Along with the areas of the soil distribution, the separate contours mark the land areas of towns, and those which were disturbed by the mining of oil and gas. The map shows the distribution of the soil cover, and the character of the surface deposits. It answers the questions occurring during its study, environmental protection and agricultural lands cultivation, including the distribution of infrastructure objects and the problems of distant-pasture deer farming.

Among the quantitative indices of the pore space, the morphometric data are characterized by the largest genetic specificity. The values of size, form and pore orientation, which form the morphometric profiles, reflect the vertical variability of the morphological composition of the soil pores. The computer analysis of the pore space in the thin sections of the soil from the main genetic layers showed lateral variability, and also the similarity and difference of morphometric profiles of the pore space in the soddy-podzolic and gray forest soils of European Russia within the range 0.2 mm < d < 2.0 mm. In order to assess the variability of the profiles of the pore space according to different morphometric indices and their comparison to each other we used method of multivariate statistics. The lateral variation of the profile distribution of the cracky roundish and horizontally (subhorizontally) oriented pores in the soddy-podzolic and gray forest soil is quite high (the most of variation coefficients exceed 15-20%). In both soils the diversity of the profile distributions of cracky and roundish pores is higher than that of pores with horizontal (subhorizontal) orientation. Comparing to the gray forest soil, the soddy-podzolic soil is generally characterized by the less expressed variation of profiles of the pore space according to the all investigated indices.

The temporal dynamics (1980-1989-1997-2002-2007-2012-2015) of the physical and chemical properties of the mountain chernozems, the most widely spread soils of the northern slope of Djinal ridge, were studied. The investigations were conducted on the lands of “Kabardino-Balkaria Research Institute of Agriculture”. We revealed that according to the state of these soils in a year 2015 the soils were affected by two types of degradation processes, which differ according to the development degree and the spatial cover of the territory. The whole territory is characterized by the processes of the strong dehumification, and the processes of medium degree of dehumification are manifested only within local areas. The consequences of the strong dehumification of the investigated soils are manifested in the significant (the coefficient is 0.70) decrease of their fertility level. The damage for the soils affected by the strong dehumification reaches 18% according to the assessment of the lands value. The most of the studied soils were also affected by the agro-exhausting in a weak or medium degree. The fertility level index for weakly diluted soils of the agricultural areas is considered to be equal to 0.90. The damage for the assessment of the land area for these soils contain 5%. The decrease of the fertility for weakly diluted soils is insignificant (the coefficient of the fertility level is 0.95), and the damage for the purposes of the land area assessment may be neglected. We calculated the total damage (30009 rubles per ha) due to the degradation processes which affected the value of the land area. We also calculated the cost of rehabilitation of these soils and their recovery to the level of the initial state.

The methods of Russian soil biology for the purposes of the investigations of soils microbiome were studied. The most important methods are cross-disciplinary investigations of plant and microbial interactions, the role of microbiome in the forming of soil fertility and carbon cycle. For the purposes of the most complete description of soil microbiome functions we suggest to combine the methods of metagenomics (for the purposes of the assessment of the phylogenic diversity of the microorganisms), biomarkers analysis (for the purposes of determination of the functional diversity) and the changes in the enzyme activity (for the purposes of the assessment of the actual functioning of soils). The investigation of correlation of the structural soil hierarchy (from aggregates and microloci to the soil areas) and levels of microbial community organization (from microbial populations to bio-geographic regularities) will allow us to understand better the distribution and common specificities of soil and microorganisms interactions. Along with the investigation of spatial organization we suggest to study the dynamics of the soil microbiomes on different time lines: short-term changes (on the field monitoring areas), transformation during the soil forming process (on the “chronosequences” of the soil of a different age) and at the geologic time scale (on the example of buried soils). In this paper we consider the importance of the investigation of the diversity of the soil microorganisms as a source of the suppressing activity of soils as the largest depository of genetic information, important agent of the emission and fixation of atmospheric carbon. The comparative analysis of microbial diversity of disturbed and undisturbed soils and the assessment of outer impact on the soil microbiome is necessary for the preservation of soil biodiversity as one of the most valuable ecologic and biotechnologic resource.

The dynamics of the soil water potential and soil temperature at different depths during the year was studied. As the object of the investigation we took soddy-podzolic clay loamy weakly gleyed soils of Zelenogradskiy base of Soil Science Institute. The data of soil water and temperature were derived from the automated meteorologic station “VantagePro2”. In conditions of the sustainable state of the other components of the environment, we discovered sharp spasmodic increase of the soil water potential at the passing of temperature values to the range below zero, i.e., in conditions of the phase overpass of the soil solution. All of the types of soil water potential changes (slow and rapid, significant and insignificant) occur due to the changes (decrease or increase) of the water content and soil temperature. For the first time in our country the thermohydrophysical phenomenon of (thermodynamic process) of sharp (at 5-6 times) and rapid (practically immediate) increase of the water potential after the overpass of the temperature over zero from the area of positive values to the negative values is discovered and described. The knowledge of specificities of the dynamics of soil water potential due to the temperature will allow us to plan the terms and norms of watering.