During 1 year, samples were taken on 4 days, one sample in each season, from pigs, the floor, and the air inside pig barns and from the ambient air and soil at different distances outside six commercial livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA)-positive pig barns in the north and east of Germany. LA-MRSA was isolated from animals, floor, and air samples in the b...

The water budget of soil, the uptake in plants and the leaching to groundwater of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) were simulated simultaneously using a physiological plant uptake model and a tipping buckets water and solute transport model for soil. Simulations were compared to results from a ten-year experimental field study, where four organic amendments were applied every second year. Predicted c...

Field measured respiration rates are necessary to size the appropriate oxygen supply equipment and to determine the proper injection/extraction flow rate and operating mode in the design of a bioventing system. Respiration rates are also used to estimate the amount of contaminant metabolized during the bioventing process. Almost all respiration tests are conducted in an open system subject to a...

In order to plan for global changing climate experiments are being conducted in many countries, but few have monitored the effects of the climate change treatments (warming, elevated CO2) on the experimental plot microclimate. During three years of an eight year study with year-round feedback-controlled infra-red heater warming (1.5/3.0°C day/night) and growing season free-air CO2 enrichment (6...

[1] Water-level increase after rainfall is usually indicative of rainfall recharge to groundwater. This, however, may not be true if the Lisse effect occurs. This effect represents the water-level increase in a well driven by airflow induced by an advancing wetting front during highly intensive rains. The rainwater, which may behave like a lowpermeability lid, seals the ground surface so that t...

Fluctuations in soil moisture create drying-rewetting events affecting the activity of microorganisms. Microbial responses to drying-rewetting are mostly studied in soils that are air-dried before rewetting. Upon rewetting, two patterns of bacterial growth have been observed. In the Type 1 pattern, bacterial growth rates increase immediately in a linear fashion. In the Type 2 pattern, bacterial...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS A test was made of the hypothesis that the prostrate growth habit of the leaves of the geophyte Brunsvigia orientalis enables utilization of soil-derived CO(2) and is related to the presence of lysigenous air-filled channels characteristic of B. orientalis leaves. METHODS Brunsvigia orientalis was sampled at a field site. Leaf anatomy, stomatal density, leaf/soil gas excha...

BACKGROUND The Atacama Desert is one of the driest deserts in the world and its soil, with extremely low moisture, organic carbon content, and oxidizing conditions, is considered to be at the dry limit for life. RESULTS Analyses of high throughput DNA sequence data revealed that bacterial communities from six geographic locations in the hyper-arid core and along a North-South moisture gradien...