sampler, and through a C-18 reverse-phased analytic column (4.6 x 250 mm). The UV detector

was set at 282 nm and pure methanol was used as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1 ml per

minute. Extracts (100 CIl) were inj ected while the column pressure was maintained at 1000 psi.

Pure ergosterol (Sigma) was recrystalized in pure methanol at different concentrations to

establish a set of standards. The standard curve was constructed from on a linear regression

relationship between peak area and ergosterol concentration. Ergosterol recoveries were

calculated from the difference between spiked and non-spiked paired samples divided by the

amount of ergosterol added. Under such conditions, an isolated peak was identified from field

samples at approximately the 13 minutes, based upon the peaks obtained from the ergosterol

standards. An averaged conversion factor for 3.65 Clg ergosterol per mg of soil translates to a

fungal biomass (mg /g soili) when multiplied by (220) (Montgomery et al. 2000). Fungal:

microbial biomass ratios were represented by a ratio of the calculated soil fungal biomass, and

the soil microbial C biomass levels for each sample.

Experimental Design and Analysis

 A three stage balanced nested design was used to integrate the indicators measured at

different scales, and between sites. Since the monitoring of the restoration site with nine distinct

reference locations produced a dataset where the assumptions for analysis of variance (ANOVA)

were not ensured, non-parametric tests were used to detect any significant differences between

the reference sites and between the distinct forest age classes (SAS, 2002).

 Inter-relationships between forest structural variables, understory species diversity indices,

and the soil biogeochemical variables were determined by Spearman's rank (r) correlations using

SAS 8.2 (Dumortier et al. 2002; SAS, 2002; Spyreas and Mathews, 2006). Trends between

variables were obtained from linear regression using the general linear model (PROC GLM)