We evaluated the potential of soil microarthropods and enchytraeid worms to be useful as bioindicators of soil condition in forest, wetland, and agricultural ecosystems over a range of ecoregions. Selected mesofauna and soil characteristics in soil and litter in relatively undisturbed and disturbed examples of each of three ecosystems within each of three land resource regions were monitored ov...

The role of methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB) in alpine environments is poorly understood, but is of importance given the abundance of alpine environments and the role of MOB in the global carbon cycle. Using a combination of approaches we examined both seasonal and land usage effects on the ecology of microbial methane oxidation in an alpine meadow soil. Analysis of the abundance and diversity ...

Tropical forests are being rapidly altered by logging, and cleared for agriculture. Understanding the effects of these land use changes on soil fungi, which play vital roles in the soil ecosystem functioning and services, is a major conservation frontier. Using 454-pyrosequencing of the ITS1 region of extracted soil DNA, we compared communities of soil fungi between unlogged, once-logged, and t...

Random reductions in plant diversity can affect ecosystem functioning, but it is still unclear which components of plant diversity (species number - namely richness, presence of particular plant functional groups, or particular combinations of these) and associated biotic and abiotic drivers explain the observed relationships, particularly for soil processes. We assembled grassland communities ...

A field survey was conducted in Wukari, Taraba State to assess the diversity and abundance of insect species in selected habitats (residential, open field made up of grassland and an agroecosystem). Sampling were done biweekly using light, pitfall and yellow pan traps set in 3 replicates, 30 m apart. Insects recovered were wet preserved in 70% ethanol except butterflies and moths. Representativ...

in this study, we investigated the importance of vegetation and elevation in the determination of the diversity and abundance of rodents in geno biosphere reserve, hormozgan province. the study area was divided into seven plant types and four elevation classes. the binary similarity coefficients were used for the investigation of the plant types similarity base on the presence of rodents. the m...

In the present paper, we investigated the effects of afforestation on nitrogen fractions and microbial communities. A total of 24 soil samples were collected from farmland (FL) and three afforested lands, namely Robinia pseudoacacia L (RP), Caragana korshinskii Kom (CK), and abandoned land (AL), which have been arable for the past 40 years. Quantitative PCR and Illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA g...

AIMS To assess the effects of dolomitic limestone applications on soil microbial communities' dynamics and bacterial and fungal biomass, relative abundance, and diversity in metal reclaimed regions. METHODS AND RESULTS The study was conducted in reclaimed mining sites and metal uncontaminated areas. The limestone applications were performed over 35 years ago. Total microbial biomass was deter...

Severe declines in biodiversity have been well documented for many taxonomic groups due to intensification of agricultural practices. Establishment and appropriate management of arable field margins can improve the diversity and abundance of invertebrate groups; however, there is much less research on field margins within grassland systems. Three grassland field margin treatments (fencing off t...