During rain, transient puddles form on roads, and this water is splashed into the air by moving vehicles. To determine whether this water contains Legionella pneumophila, we collected samples from roads. We found that L. pneumophila are abundant in these puddles, especially during warm weather.

The behaviour of the sporulating soil-dwelling Bacillus cereus sensu lato (B. cereus sl) which includes foodborne pathogenic strains has been extensively studied in relation to its various animal hosts. The aim of this environmental study was to investigate the water compartments (rain and soil water, as well as groundwater) closely linked to the primary B. cereus sl reservoir, for which availa...

[1] The spaceborne 94 GHz radar onboard the CloudSat polar orbiting satellite offers new opportunities in estimating parameters of precipitating cloud systems including hurricanes. CloudSat measurements can resolve the vertical extent of storms and hurricanes, thus providing a view of their complex structure. These measurements can be used to retrieve with high spatial resolution rainfall and i...

Hot desert ecosystems experience rare and unpredictable rainfall events that resuscitate the arid flora and fauna. However, the effect of this sudden abundance of water on soil microbial communities is still under debate. We modeled varying rainfall amounts and temperatures in desert soil mesocosms and monitored the microbial community response over a period of 21 days. We studied two different...

[1] Using sugarcane as a case study, this paper shows how an agronomic model can be used to estimate the marginal value of stored irrigation water with uncertain future rain. We do this by estimating production functions that have the water available for use as the variable factor of production (referring to them as allocation production functions). These differ from more ‘‘traditional’’ produc...

Determination of water sources of plant species in a community is critical for understanding the hydrological processes and their importance in ecosystem functions. Such partitioning of plant xylem water into specific sources (i.e. precipitation, groundwater) can be achieved by analysing deuterium isotopic composition (υD) values for source waters. A subalpine dark coniferous forest in southwes...

In country like India where an amount of precipitation is limited to specific period (monsoon season) and if not utilized, water becomes a scary resource. At this same time the present statistics about the average water table in the country indicates a rapid fall in the level. There is an immense need to make a proper utilization of water and increase in ground water level by means of rain wate...

Evidence is increasing to suggest that a major activity of roots is to redistribute soil water. Roots in hydraulic contact with soil generally either absorb or lose water, depending on the direction of the gradient in water potential between root and soil. This leads to phenomena such as "hydraulic lift" where dry upper soil layers drive water transfer from deep moist layers to the shallow rhiz...

The relationship between physiological traits and fitness often depends on environmental conditions. In variable environments, different species may be favored through time, which can influence both the nature of trait evolution and the ecological dynamics underlying community composition. To determine how fluctuating environmental conditions favor species with different physiological traits ov...