Soil communities associated with specific plant species affect individual plants' growth and competitive ability. Limited evidence suggests that unique soil communities can also differentially influence growth and competition at the ecotype level. Previous work with Arabidopsis thaliana has shown that accessions produce distinct and reproducible rhizosphere bacterial communities, with significa...

Sun, H., Nelson, M., Chen, F. and Husch, J. 2009. Soil mineral structural water loss during loss on ignition analyses. Can. J. Soil Sci. 89: 603 610. Water loss from soil minerals has been known to cause errors in the determination of soil organic matter when the loss on ignition (LOI) method is used. Unfortunately, no known published studies reliably quantify the range of structural water in t...

*Correspondence: Erik F. Braudeau, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Pédologie Hydrostructurale, 32 Avenue Henri Varagnat, 93140 Bondy, France e-mail: [email protected] Current soil water models do not take into account the internal organization of the soil medium and consequently ignore the physical interaction between the water film at the surface of solids that form the soil st...

The unsaturated soil hydraulic properties, including soil water retention curve and hydraulic conductivity, are the crucial input parameters for simulating soil water and solute transport through the unsaturated zone at regional scales, and are expensive to measure. These properties are frequently predicted with pedotransfer functions (PTFs) using the routinely measured soil properties. 110 soi...

Activities of burrowing herbivores, including movement of soil and litter and deposition of waste material, can alter the distribution of labile carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in soil, affecting spatial patterning of nutrient dynamics in ecosystems where they are abundant. Their role in ecosystem processes in surface soil has been studied extensively, but effects of burrowing species on processes ...

Soil moisture plays a key role in most environmental processes, as evaporation and transpiration are heavily dependent on soil moisture variability. While it is one of the few important hydrological variables that can be directly observed, the high spatial and temporal variability makes it difficult to measure globally or even regionally. Reliance is therefore placed on land surface models to p...

Irrigation of vegetables during both air and soil-born drought has very positive effect on growth, development and yield. The impact of irrigation on the metabolism of plants is very complex because the increase in soil moisture affects plant physical, chemical and biological properties. Increasing the amount of water in the soil increases its heath capacity. Irrigated (wet) soil is cooler in s...

Enzymes are the vital activators in life processes, likewise in the soil they are known to play a substantial role in maintaining soil health and its environment. The enzymatic activity in the soil is mainly of microbial origin, being derived from intracellular, cell-associated or free enzymes. A unique balance of chemical, physical, and biological (including microbial especially enzyme activit...

The upper few millimeters of soil harbour photosynthetic microbial communities that are structurally distinct from those of underlying bulk soil due to the presence of light. Previous studies in arid zones have demonstrated functional importance of these communities in reducing soil erosion, and enhancing carbon and nitrogen fixation. Despite being widely distributed, comparative understanding ...