There has been much work on plant-feeding nematodes, and less on other soil nematodes, their distribution, abundance, intrinsic properties, and interactions with biotic and abiotic factors. Seasonal variation in nematode fauna as a whole is correlated with factors such as moisture, temperature, and plant growth; at each site nematode distribution generally reflects root distribution. There is a...

Aerosols affect downward solar radiation, impacting the terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics and energy budget. Here we apply a coupled modeling framework of a terrestrial ecosystem model and an atmospheric radiative transfer model to evaluate aerosol direct radiative effects on the surface heat fluxes of global terrestrial ecosystems during 2003–2010. We find that aerosol loadings decrease th...

Factors constraining the structure of food webs can be investigated by comparing classes of ecosystems. We find that pelagic ecosystems, those based on one-celled primary producers, have longer food chains than terrestrial ecosystems. Yet pelagic ecosystems have lower primary productivity, contrary to the hypothesis that greater energy flows permit higher trophic levels. We hypothesize that lon...

Floras of predominantly wet-soil environments show a greater than expected proportion of toothed leaves, affecting the outcome of leaf physiognomically based temperature estimates. New analyses of foliar physiognomy of plants growing in predominantly wet soils in modern forests suggest that current methods of inferring paleotemperatures from fossil floras yield underestimates of 2.5-10 degrees ...

P.Ya. Groisman and G. Gutman (eds.), Regional Environmental Changes in Siberia and Their Global Consequences, Springer Environmental Science and Engineering, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4569-8_6, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract This chapter considers the current state of Siberian terrestrial ecosystems, their spatial distribution, and major biometric characteristics. Ongoin...

With the increasing awareness of environmental protection worldwide, it is becoming more and more important to evaluate the effects of chemical substances on the natural environment. With pesticides being intentionally released into the natural environment to protect crops from harmful insects, weeds and pathogenic microorganisms, countries worldwide, with Europe and the United States taking th...

PB 103 The six chapters (Chapters 10-15) in Part III consider the current and future carbon balance of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in North America. Although the amount of carbon exchanged between these ecosystems and the atmosphere each year through photosynthesis and plant and microbial respiration is large, the net balance for all of the ecosystems combined is currently a net sink of ...