Abstract:Soil biota and enzyme activities would be impacted under elevated nitrogen deposition condition. However, the relative stability of micro habitat within soil aggregates could also decrease or delay the response intensity of soil enzyme activities. This study was conducted in a Schima superba plantation, which located in Dalingshan forest park, Dongguan city, Guangdong, China in 2011.12-2012.11 by simulated nitrogen deposition treatments. Soil urease, invertase and acid phosphatase activities in surface homogenized soil (0-5 cm), as well as in soil aggregates (0.25-1 mm, 1-2 mm, 2-5 mm, and 5-8 mm) were analyzed to study the impacts of soil aggregates on soil enzyme activities under elevated N deposition. It showed that no significant effects of N deposition on soil urease and invertase activities were observed in the surface homogenized soil, while the soil acid phosphatase activities were dramatically impacted by N deposition with promotion in the low N deposition treatment (50 kg N hm-2 a-1) and inhibition in the high N deposition treatment (300 kg N hm-2 a-1). The urease activities in surface soil aggregates decreased with the increase of N deposition addition, and there were significant differences of urease activity in surface soil aggregates between N300 treatment and N0 treatment. With the increase amount of N deposition, the invertase and acid phosphatase activities in soil aggregates decreased at first and then increased. There were the lowest invertase and acid phosphatase activities in N100 treatment, 6.46%-25.53% and 42.33%-68.25% lower than that in other N deposition treatments, respectively. Almost all enzyme activities in soil aggregates were higher than that in homogenized soils, and the activities increased at first and then decreased with the soil aggregate size increase. In this study, the highest soil enzyme activities were found in the 2-5 mm size aggregates. No significant differences of urease and acid phosphatase activities were observed among different soil aggregate sizes, while the invertase activities in 2-5 mm aggregates were significantly higher than that in 5-8 mm aggregates. The relative enzyme activity indexes in more than 85% soil aggregates were higher than 1, and the relative enzyme activity composite index were all higher than 1. The results suggested that stimulated N deposition changed the soil enzyme activities both in homogenized soils and aggregated soils; soil aggregates could protect the internal soil enzyme activities under N deposition addition to a certain extent, which were related to the kinds of soil enzymes and soil aggregate sizes.