Table 4 Means and standard deviations for soil biological properties at three studied elevations (n=5). One-way ANOVA results with Tukey test. Values bearing different letters in superscripts differ significantly between elevations. decomposers of recalcitrant compounds (Myers et al. 2001). Amine utilisation was lowest in these soils where the concentration of DON was highest and, oppositely, DON was lowest in these soils where the amine utilisation was the highest. These findings con- firm the importance of nitrogen transformation in organic matter Amines contain an ammonia group in their chemical structure and are organic derivatives of ammonia, a final product of pro- tein decomposition (van der Heijden et al. 2008). Soil bacteria are the primary decomposers of amino acids and other simple C compounds, whereas soil fungi are thought to be the primary