Soil respiration, a major component of the global carbon cycle, is significantly influenced by land management practices. Grasslands are potentially a major sink for carbon, but can also be a source. Here, we investigated the potential effect of land management (grazing, clipping, and ungrazed enclosures) on soil respiration in the semiarid grassland of northern China. Our results showed the me...

Using plants to extract excess nitrate from soil is important in protecting against eutrophication of standing water, hypoxic conditions in lakes and oceans, or elevated nitrate concentrations in domestic water supplies Global climate change issues have raised new concerns about nitrogen (N) management as it relates to crop production even though there may not be an immediate threat to water qu...

Global change may be a severe threat to natural and agricultural systems, partly through its effects in altering soil biota and processes, due to changes in water balance. We studied the potential influence of changing soil water balance on soil biota by comparing existing sites along a natural water balance gradient in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. In this study, the community structure of bact...

This paper presents an approach to estimating soil moisture content through fitting an inverted Gaussian function to the continuum in soil spectra. The soil moisture Gaussian model (SMGM) estimates the water content by the declining reflectance in the near infrared (NIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) regions, 1.2–2.5 Am, due to the spreading of the fundamental water absorption at 2.8 Am. Convex...

Reduced recruitment of blue oak (Quercus douglasii) seedlings in California grasslands and woodlands may result from shifts in seasonal soil water availability coincident with replacement of the native perennial herbaceous community by Mediterranean annuals. We used a combination of container and field experiments to examine the interrelationships between soil water potential, herbaceous neighb...

The magnitude and direction of water transport by the roots of eight dominant Brazilian savanna (Cerrado) woody species were determined with a heat pulse system that allowed bidirectional measurements of sap flow. The patterns of sap flow observed during the dry season in species with dimorphic root systems were consistent with the occurrence of hydraulic redistribution of soil water, the movem...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Soil water deficit is a major abiotic stress with severe consequences for the development, productivity and quality of crops. However, it is considered a positive factor in grapevine management (Vitis vinifera), as it has been shown to increase grape quality. The effects of soil water deficit on organogenesis, morphogenesis and gas exchange in the shoot were investigated. ...

On military training ranges, low-order, incomplete detonations deposit RDX (hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine) into surface soils. In this study, we evaluated RDX biodegradation in surface soils obtained from a military training range in Alaska. Two factors were compared: (i) soil water potential during the incubations; and (ii) the use of acetonitrile (ACN) as an RDX carrier to spike sam...

Opisthorchis viverrini infection is associated with human cholangiocarcinoma and northeast Thailand has the highest incidence of this disease in the world. Bithynia siamensis goniomphalos is the major freshwater snail intermediate host of O. viverrini in this area and an analysis based on geographical information systems was used to determine the effect of variation in soil surface salt on the ...

those fields. Both of these techniques, however, require more observations than are practical for most field manEstimation of mean water status in a field is crucial to effective agers. Efforts have been made to characterize fields irrigation water management. Problems encountered with the estimation of mean field soil water status may be attributed to spatial variabilfrom fewer observations. T...