The diversity of cultivable methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB) in the rice paddy field ecosystem was investigated by combined culture-dependent and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) techniques. Seven microsites of a Japanese rice paddy field were the focus of the study: floodwater, surface soil, bulk soil, rhizosphere soil, root, basal stem of rice plant, and rice stumps of previous harve...

Understanding spatial variation of soil organic carbon (SOC) in three-dimensional direction is helpful for land use management. Due to the effect of profile depths and soil texture on vertical distribution of SOC, the stationary assumption for SOC cannot be met in the vertical direction. Therefore the three-dimensional (3D) ordinary kriging technique cannot be directly used to map the distribut...

A greenhouse study was conducted to determine the effects of soil type on the response of ‘Russell’ bermudagrass [Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.] to broiler litter applications. Soils included Leeper clay loam (fine, smectitic, nonacid, thermic Vertic Epiaquept), Marietta silt loam (fine-silty, mixed, active, thermic Oxyaquic Fraglossudalf), and Ruston sandy loam (fine-loamy, siliceous, semiactive...

Many regions of southern California's coastal sage scrub (CSS) are rapidly declining as exotic annual plants replace native shrubs. During this conversion, the subsurface hydrology of the semiarid hillslopes that support CSS may be altered. This could chronically suppress the ability of native shrubland to revegetate the landscape since ecosystem processes of nutrient availability and of seedli...

Twenty four study areas of three most widespread soil types (pebble rendzinas, typical brown soils and pseudopodzolic soils) all over Estonia were selected. In each group of soil type, eight fields were selected for studies in 2003–2004. The mean abundance of earthworm communities was the highest in pseudopodzolic soils (107.11±22.4 individuals per m) and lower in pebble rendzinas (47.94±11.25 ...

Understanding how communities assemble is a central goal of ecology. This is particularly relevant for communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), because the community composition of these beneficial plant symbionts influences important ecosystem processes. Moreover, AMF may be used as sensitive indicators of ecological soil quality if they respond to environmental variation in a predic...

Plant taxa identified in 90 U.S. Great Lakes coastal emergent wetlands were evaluated as indicators of physical environment. Canonical correspondence analysis using the 40 most common taxa showed that water depth and tussock height explained the greatest amount of species-environment interaction among ten environmental factors measured as continuous variables (water depth, tussock height, latit...

this work investigates the effect of the application rate and type of sludge throughout the soilcarbon cycle in a semiarid mediterranean agro-ecosystem. we study the two-year evolution of the variouspools of soil organic and inorganic carbon and their influence on soil respiration. we applied three rates (40, 80 and 160 mg/ha) of two types of sludge –aerobically and anaerobically digested sewag...

Soil tillage systems can be able to influence soil compaction, water dynamics, soil temperature and crop yield. These processes can be expressed as changes of soil microbiological activity, soil respiration and sustainability of agriculture. Objectives of this study were: 1 to assess the effects of tillage systems (Conventional System (CS), Minimum Tillage (MT), No-Tillage (NT)) on soil compact...