The weather patterns of the west side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains (cold, wet winters and hot, dry summers) strongly influence how water is partitioned between transpiration and evaporation and result in a specific strategy of water use by ponderosa pine trees (Pinus ponderosa) in this region. To investigate how year-round water fluxes were partitioned in a young ponderosa pine ecosystem in t...

Precipitation, throughfall, forest floor, and soil leachate samples were monitored continuously in 1981 and 1982 in aN-poor Douglasfir (Pseudotsuga men:.iesii (Mirb.) Franco) forest and a red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.) forest growing adjacently on a glacial soil in western Washington. The purpose of the study was to quantify the relative importance of atmospheric vs. natural sources of H + input...

Soil is exposed to hydrogen when symbiotic rhizobia in legume root nodules cannot recycle the hydrogen that is generated during nitrogen fixation. The hydrogen emitted is most likely taken up by free-living soil bacteria that use hydrogen as an energy source, though the bacteria that do this in situ remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the effect of hydrogen exposure on the bacteria o...

Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) is a relatively green and sustainable soil improvement technique. It utilizes biochemical process that exists naturally in soil to improve engineering properties of soils. The calcite precipitation process is uplifted by the mean of injecting higher concentration of urease positive bacteria and reagents into the soil. The main objective of this pap...

Arid and semi-arid regions comprise nearly one-fifth of the earth's terrestrial surface. However, the diversities and functions of their soil microbial communities are not well understood, despite microbial ecological importance in driving biogeochemical cycling. Here, we analyzed the geochemistry and microbial communities of the desert soils from Tarim Basin, northwestern China. Our geochemica...

The technical comment from Sanderman provides a unique opportunity to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms explaining the role of paleoclimate in the contemporary distribution of global soil C content, as reported in our article. Sanderman argues that the role of paleoclimate in predicting soil C content might be accounted for by using slowly changing soil properties as predictors. This i...

In recent years soil bacteria of the genus Azospirillum found increasing biological and ecological interest because of their ability to microaerobically fix N 2 and to live in close association with plant roots, stimulating growth of nitrogenlimited plants [1-5]. The physiology of N 2 fixation, especially its repression by N H + , has been studied extensively [6-9]. The question, however, how N...

High-N(2)-fixing activities of Frankia populations in root nodules on Alnus glutinosa improve growth performance of the host plant. Therefore, the establishment of active, nodule-forming populations of Frankia in soil is desirable. In this study, we inoculated Frankia strains of Alnus host infection groups I, IIIa, and IV into soil already harboring indigenous populations of infection groups (I...

Decreased biological nitrogen fixation in glyphosate-resistant (GR) soybeans has been attributed directly to toxicity of glyphosate or its metabolites, to N2-fixing microorganisms. As a strong metal chelator, glyphosate could influence symbiotic N2 fixation by lowering the concentration of nickel (Ni) that is essential for the symbiotic microorganisms. Evaluation of different cultivars grown on...

Limited information is available if plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) can promote the growth of fruit crops through improvements in soil fertility. This study aimed to evaluate the capacity of PGPB, identified by phenotypic and 16S rRNA sequencing from a vegetable purple soil in Chongqing, China, to increase soil nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) availability and growth of ki...