Rainfall simulation experiments were conducted on annual grassland and coastal sage scrub hillslopes to determine the quantities of C and N removed by surface runoff in sediment and solution. Undisturbed coastal sage scrub soils have very high infiltration capacities (> 140 mm h(-1)), preventing the generation of surface runoff. Trampling disturbance to the sage scrub plots dramatically reduced...

Substantial amounts of nutrients are lost from soils through leaching. These losses can be environmentally damaging, causing groundwater eutrophication and also comprise an economic burden in terms of lost agricultural production. More intense precipitation events caused by climate change will likely aggravate this problem. So far it is unresolved to which extent soil biota can make ecosystems ...

Nutrient losses from banked breast milk during tube feeding were determined from laboratory models. Large fat losses occurred, continuous feeding giving rise to significantly greater losses than bolus feeding. More fat loss occurred with low flow rates and there were also significant protein losses.

there are human and animal health concerns related to drainage systems because nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, can contaminate water supplies. a field study was conducted on consolidated paddy fields of sari agricultural sciences and natural resources university, northern iran (36.3°n, 53.04°e), to determine the effect of subsurface drain depth and spacing on nitrogen (n) and pho...

The effects of a wildfire, occurred in August 1992, on nutrient losses by water erosion have been studied. The fire affected an area of 9498 ha of Pine forest and shrub, located in Sierra Calderona (Valencia, Spain). In the burned area, six stations of erosion measurement were set up immediately after the end of the fire. The results obtained in these stations are reported. Topographical, edaph...

Tropical smallholder agriculture is undergoing rapid transformation in nutrient cycling pathways as international development efforts strongly promote greater use of mineral fertilizers to increase crop yields. These changes in nutrient availability may alter the composition of microbial communities with consequences for rates of biogeochemical processes that control nutrient losses to the envi...

Recent research shows that nutrient fluxes are often pulsed In tropical forests, and that pulsed versus gradual inputs have different effects on the fates of nutrients in the ecosystem. Synchrony of nutrient mineralization with plant uptake can lower competition between microbes and plants for limiting nutrients while maintaining tight nutrient cycling, whereas asynchrony can lead to losses of ...