Mineral elements in soil solutions are thought to be the precursor of the formation of reactive minerals, which play an important role in global carbon (C) cycling. However, information regarding the regulation of mineral elements release in soil is scarce. Here, we examined the long-term (i.e., 23 yrs) effects of fertilisation practices on Fe minerals in a red soil in Southern China. The resul...

Harvests of crops, their trade and consumption, soil erosion, fertilization and recycling of organic waste generate fluxes of phosphorus in and out of the soil that continuously change the worldwide spatial distribution of total phosphorus in arable soils. Furthermore, due to variability in the properties of the virgin soils and the different histories of agricultural practices, on a planetary ...

Sustainable and rational management of agrophytocenoses depends on various bioindices and methods of application, particularly the development and protection of soil resources (Lai et al., 2002). Among other indices, enzyme activity is proposed as a universal index of soil fertility and contamination (Dilly et al., 2003). To ascertain and to make a comparison of bioactivity variation during the...

Biochars are complex heterogeneous materials that consist of mineral phases, amorphous C, graphitic C, and labile organic molecules, many of which can be either electron donors or acceptors when placed in soil. Biochar is a reductant, but its electrical OPEN ACCESS Agronomy 2015, 5 323 and electrochemical properties are a function of both the temperature of production and the concentration and ...

Soil wettability (quantified in terms of contact angle, CA) is crucial for physical, chemical, and biological soil functioning. As the CA is determined by components present within the outmost nanometer of particles, this study applied X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with a maximum analysis depth of 10 nm to test the relationship between CA and surface elemental composition, using soil s...

Microcalorimetry, plate count and PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) were employed to investigate microbial diversity and activity in soils from the Red Soil Experimental Station of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hunan Province, China, where a wheat-corn rotation with 12 fertilization treatments was established in 1990. Fertilization greatly increased microbial bi...

We examined differences in the radioactive characteristics among the main minerals forming granite materials. Using a non-toxic high-density agent, minerals were separated from rock (granite-gneiss) and soil (weathered granite) samples. The natural radioactivity ((238)U and (226)Ra) and radon emanation fraction of the minerals were then studied by gamma-ray spectrometry. The radon emanation fra...

The Dust REgional Atmospheric Model (DREAM) predicts concentrations of mineral dust aerosols in time and space, but validation is challenging with current in-situ particulate matter (PM) concentration measurements. Measured levels of ambient PM often contain anthropogenic components as well as windblown mineral dust. In this study, two approaches at model validation were performed with data fro...

Simulation models are valuable tools to increase understanding of complex soil chemical processes. Initially modeling was restricted by limited computational power; thus, complex natural systems were often simulated with site-specific, regression-based models. These models (classified as functional models by Hoosbeek & Bryant, 1992) do not deal with the actual processes but were designed to sim...

Temperate forests provide favorable conditions for carbonate bedrock weathering as the soil CO2 partial pressure is high and soil water is regularly available. As a result of weathering, abiotic CO2 can be released and contribute to the soil CO2 efflux. We used the distinct isotopic signature of the abiotic CO2 to estimate its contribution to the total soil CO2 efflux. Soil cores were sampled f...