ECOLOGY: Battles Below Ground

A global Fine-Root Ecology Database to address below-ground challenges in plant ecology.

Variation and tradeoffs within and among plant traits are increasingly being harnessed by empiricists and modelers to understand and predict ecosystem processes under changing environmental conditions. While fine roots play an important role in ecosystem functioning, fine-root traits are underrepresented in global trait databases. This has hindered efforts to analyze fine-root trait variation a...

Modeling Carbon Allocation below Ground

Belowground carbon expenditure has been difficult to measure, and even more so to predict. Root growth is influenced by both direct effects on plant metabolism and indirect effects of soil drying and interactions with soil organisms. In Concord grape, crop load may compete with root growth when soil moisture is not limiting. Root lifespan also is difficult to predict but some success can be ach...

Below-ground interactions in dryland agroforestry

This paper discusses the effects of intercropping and tree pruning on root distribution and soil water depletion in an alley cropping system with Acacia saligna and Sorghum bicolor in northern Kenya. Root distribution was determined by destructive sampling, and the soil water suction was measured with tensiometers and gypsum blocks, both up to 150 cm depth. The root systems of the intercropped ...

Mechanosensitivity Below Ground: Touch-Sensitive Smell-

Whaling battles

organisms within a few decades,” says Carol Turley of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Jean-Pierre Gattuso of CNRSUniversity Pierre and Marie Curie, who has researchers in the team said: “The oceans absorb about a quarter of human-made carbon dioxide. This has been limiting the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and mitigating climate change. However, the massive amounts absorbed — about...