ABSTRACT
Globally, 75% of terrestrial carbon is found in soil organic matter. Soils are the basic resources of mountainous areas. They provide the medium in which plants and forests grow and their properties determine water availability for vegetation. Low organic matter content and high degradation of soil in the mountain slopes are the main causes of the low vegetation productivity in the Pamir ranges. The soil organic matter consists of a mixture of plant and animal residues in various stages of decomposition, of substances formed either chemically or biologically from various breakdown products, and of a biomass of soil organisms and its decomposing remains. Recent concern for increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, and also the losses of nonhuman carbon stored in arable and forest soils, has resulted in increased interest in the mineralization of plant carbon its sequestration by humic substances.
