Podocarp distribution in Africa follows a discontinuous mountainous belt from Cameroon to Angola in the west and from Ethiopia in the northeast to the southern Cape in South Africa. Besides a relict population of Afrocarpus falcatus in coastal lowland forest in northeastern South Africa and southern Mozambique, African podocarps are generally limited to highland (Afrotemperate) regions. All pod...

The FAO AquaCrop model has been widely applied throughout the world to simulate crop responses to deficit water applications. However, its application to saline conditions is not yet reported, though saline soils are common in coastal areas. In this study, we parameterized and tested AquaCrop to simulate rice yield under different salinity regimes. The data and information required in the model...

This study aims to document the changes in modern pollen assemblages and soil elemental chemistry along broad edaphic, hydrological, and salinity gradients, including a previously undocumented secondary environmental gradient, in a vast mangrove-dominated wetland region in the Everglades, South Florida. Twenty-five soil surface samples were collected along an interior wetland transect and an es...

The role of exotic plants in regulating soil microbial community structure and activity following invasion chronosequence remains unclear. We investigated soil microbial community structure and microbial respiration following Spartina alterniflora invasion in a chronosequence of 6-, 10-, 17-, and 20-year-old by comparing with bare flat in a coastal wetland of China. S. alterniflora invasion sig...

The consequences of previous as well as current environmental conditions and management practices on the potential for phosphorus (P) to be lost by drainage from sandy soils in the short term (< I year) were studied in the laboratory and the field. The potential for P losses by drainage was estimated by measuring soil solution P levels and rapidly released P. Rapidly released P was measured by ...

Coastal aquatic ecosystems are increasingly affected by diffuse source nutrient water pollution from agricultural activities in coastal catchments, even though these ecosystems are important from a social, environmental and economic perspective. To warrant sustainable economic development of coastal regions, we need to balance marginal costs from coastal catchment water pollution abatement and ...

Soil fauna are critical for ecosystem function and sensitive to the changes of soil fertility. The effects of fertilization on soil fauna communities, however, remain poorly understood. We examined the effects of fertilization form and quantity on the abundance, diversity and composition of soil fauna across an age-sequence of poplar plantations (i.e., 4-, 9- and 20-yr-old) in the coastal regio...

BACKGROUND In the lower Mekong Basin and coastal zones of Southern Vietnam, forests dominated by the genus Melaleuca have two notable features: most have been substantially disturbed by human activity and can now be considered as degraded forests; and most are subject to acute pressures from climate change, particularly in regards to changes in the hydrological and sodicity properties of forest...

Three field experiments were established in a loamy sand soil in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina to determine downward movement of aldicarb and fenamiphos with a nematode bioassay. Penetration of bioassay plant roots by Meloidogyne incognita was measured at 1, 3, 7, 14, 21, and 28 days after treatment in the greenhouse as a means of determining nematicide effectiveness. Chemical movement wa...