Evaluation of the nitrogen cycle in an agricultural soil disturbed with nickel-salphen and zinc-salphen compounds: Evaluación del ciclo del nitrógeno en un suelo agrícola perturbado con compuestos Salfen de níquel y zinc

Soil ecosystem provides fundamental services as biogeochemical cycles regulation. Nitrogen cycle is managed by the microbiota that it harbors and depends on the stability of the ecosystem to cope abiotic disturbances such as metal and metalloid contamination. High concentrations of nickel (Ni) and zinc (Zn) in agricultural soils are frequently related to the application of conventional farming practices, composting, irrigation and deposit of biosolids, as well as wastewater polluted from the mining and thermoelectric industry. To better understand the effects of this kind of abiotic disturbance a microcosm study was performed with agricultural soil from the Coast of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico and contaminated with Ni (II) and Zn (II) salphen complexes to evaluate their effect on the system, regarding the nitrogen cycle fluxes over the time. The results obtained by spectrophotometric analyzes of the inorganic nitrogen pool, atomic absorption and pH revealed that the soil system functioning based on the nitrogen cycle was recovered 240 days after disturbances with M-salphen. This suggest the potential use of NiSB15 as a promoter to increase nitrate concentration at 60 days in conjunction with NiSA15 to increase ammonium concentration in agricultural soils contaminated with heavy metals.