Although salinity in many ecosystems such as salt marshes can be extremely high, an asymmetry in salinity range between experimental studies (relatively narrow) and field conditions (potentially broad) has strongly affected current understanding of plant salinity tolerance. To improve understanding, it is thus important to examine plant tolerances over a broad range of salinities and identify p...

Herbivores modify their environment by consuming plant biomass and redistributing materials across the landscape. While small mammalian herbivores, such as rodents, are typically inconspicuous, their impacts on plant community structure and chemistry can be large. We used a small mammal exclosure experiment to explore whether rodents in a southeastern old field directly altered the aboveground ...

Currently, information on forest biomass is available from a mixture of sources, including in-situ measurements, national forest inventories, administrative-level statistics, model outputs and regional satellite products. These data tend to be regional or national, based on different methodologies and not easily accessible. One of the few maps available is the Global Forest Resources Assessment...

Soil organisms can have important impacts on the structure, diversity, and invasion potential of plant communities. In particular, the short co-evolutionary history of nonnative plants with soil biota could confer unusual benefits or costs to hosts in the introduced range with consequences for invasion success. We used parallel pot and field studies to examine how soil biota (active or steriliz...

Urban trees sequester carbon into biomass and provide many ecosystem service benefits aboveground leading to worldwide tree planting schemes. Since soils hold ∼75% of ecosystem organic carbon, understanding the effect of urban trees on soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil properties that underpin belowground ecosystem services is vital. We use an observational study to investigate effects of thre...

Intensive pine plantation management may provide opportunities to increase carbon sequestration in the Southeastern United States. Developing management options that increase fi ber production and soil carbon sequestration require an understanding of the biological and edaphic processes that control soil carbon turnover. Belowground carbon resides primarily in three pools: roots, necromass (lit...