Boreal ecosystems store one-third of global soil organic carbon (SOC) and are particularly sensitive to climate warming and higher nutrient inputs. Thus, a better description of how forest managements such as nutrient fertilization impact soil carbon (C) and its temperature sensitivity is needed to better predict feedbacks between C cycling and climate. The temperature sensitivity of in situ so...

BACKGROUND Global climatic change is generally expected to stimulate net primary production, and consequently increase soil carbon (C) input. The enhanced C input together with potentially increased precipitation may affect soil microbial processes and plant growth. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS To examine the effects of C and water additions on soil microbial properties and plant growth, we...

Savannas cover at least 13% of the global terrestrial surface and are often nutrient limited, especially by nitrogen. To gain a better understanding of their microbial diversity and the microbial nitrogen cycling in savanna soils, soil samples were collected along a granitic and a basaltic catena in Kruger National Park (South Africa) to characterize their bacterial and archaeal composition and...

Despite improvements in the use of soil conservation practices, crop rotation and nutrient management programs, significant concern still exists regarding soil erosion and nutrient losses in runoff from row crop production. In the US, states are required to implement water quality standards based on USEPA guidelines or other scientifically defensible methods (Ice and Binkley, 2003). Agroforestr...

Nutrient resorption from senesced leaves as a nutrient conservation strategy is important for plants to adapt to nutrient deficiency, particularly in alpine and arid environment. However, the leaf nutrient resorption patterns of different functional plants across environmental gradient remain unclear. In this study, we conducted a transect survey of 12 communities to address foliar nitrogen (N)...

The fine-root system of perennial, dicot woody species can be dominated by brown roots. Although as much as 90% of the surface area of a root system can be in this category of roots, the nutrient uptake characteristics of brown roots are not well understood. If this part of the root system has active uptake, then its significance is obvious. If it does not then modelling predictions of nutrient...

Aims: Many experiments have shown a positive effect of species richness on productivity in grassland plant communities. However, it is poorly understood how environmental conditions affect this relationship. We aimed to test whether deep soil and limiting nutrient conditions increase the complementarity effect (CE) of species richness due to enhanced potential for resource partitioning. Methods...

Globally, mediterranean-climate ecosystem vegetation has converged on an evergreen, sclerophyllous and shrubby growth form. The particular aspects of mediterranean-climate regions that contribute to this convergence include summer droughts and relatively nutrient-poor soils. We hypothesised that winter-precipitation implies stressful summer droughts and leaches soils due to greater water availa...

Many models of phosphorus (P) transfer at the catchment scale rely on input from generic databases including, amongst others, soil and land use maps. Spatially detailed geochemical data sets have the potential to improve the accuracy of the input parameters of catchment-scale nutrient transfer models. Furthermore, they enable the assessment of the utility of available, generic spatial data sets...

The response of plant species composition, diversity and soil nutrient availability to different canopysizes and age gaps in a Pinus Massoniana plantation were surveyed in Taizishan, Hubei province, central China. The soil chemical properties of 27 gaps and 3 non-gaps were measured and compared. The study objectives were: (a) confirm whether and when nutrient pulses emerged in small gaps; (b) d...