Drying organic material before soil incorporation is a common procedure used in mineralization or decomposition studies. A laboratory study was conducted to determine the effect of drying methods on plant C and N and associated mineralization patterns in soil. Freezeand oven-dried water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes [Mart] Solms) was added to a Kendrick soil (loamy, siliceous, hyperthermic Are...

in order to investigate the effects of soil chemical characteristics on weed species diversity in eastern mashhad region wheat (triticum aestivum l.) fields, an investigation was held in the year 2009. wheat fields were classified based on the acreage from 3-5, 5-10 and higher than 10 ha. five random soil samples were taken using a 5 cm diameter auger from the soil of each experimental field an...

Denitrification is a critical process that can alleviate the effects of excessive nitrogen availability in aquatic ecosystems subject to eutrophication. An important part of denitrification occurs in benthic systems where bioturbation by meiofauna (invertebrates <1 mm) and its effect on element cycling are still not well understood. Here we study the quantitative impact of meiofauna populations...

Mycorrhizal fungi channel significant amounts of recently fixed plant carbon (C) through the soil, affecting a number of soil processes including the composition and activity of microbial communities and soil organic matter (SOM) mineralization. Some of the mycorrhizal fungi (particularly those establishing ecto-, ericoid and orchid mycorrhizas) can directly mineralize SOM, although often they ...

Enrichment cultures containing atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamino-6-isopropylamino-1,3,5-triazine) at a concentration of 100 ppm (0.46 mM) as a sole nitrogen source were obtained from soils exposed to repeated spills of atrazine, alachlor, and metolachlor. Bacterial growth occurred concomitantly with formation of metabolites from atrazine and subsequent biosynthesis of protein. When ring-labeled [...

Microbial phenol oxidases and peroxidases mediate biogeochemical processes in soils, including microbial acquisition of carbon and nitrogen, lignin degradation, carbon mineralization and sequestration, and dissolved organic carbon export. Measuring oxidative enzyme activities in soils is more problematic than assaying hydrolytic enzyme activities because of the non-specific, free radical nature...