The disposal of municipal solid waste into the landfills has been recognized as the major source of soil, surface water and groundwater contamination. Municipal solid waste disposal site for the city of Ludhiana, in Punjab, India, has become an overflowing landfill because of the indiscriminate dumping of solid waste at the site. The leachate produced by landfilling site contains a large amount...

Many people consider earthworms to be an indicator of soil quality because they respond to and contribute to healthy soil. For earthworms to be abundant, a field must meet several conditions that are also associated with soil quality and agricultural sustainability: moderate pH, surface residue for food and protection, and soil that is not waterlogged, compacted, droughty, or excessively sandy....

This report summarizes the proceedings of the 2(nd) Annual Argonne Soils Workshop held at Argonne National Laboratory October 6-8, 2010. The workshop assembled a diverse group of soil ecologists, microbiologists, molecular biologists, and computational scientists to discuss the challenges and opportunities related to implementation of metagenomics approaches in soil microbial ecology. The overa...

Agricultural land is typically managed based on visible plant life at the expense of the belowground majority. However, microorganisms mediate processes sustaining plant life and the soil environment. To understand the role of microbes we first must understand what controls soil microbial community assembly. We assessed the distribution and composition of prokaryotic communities from soils repr...

An understanding of the nature of soils in natural and human influence ecosystems is essential if progress is to be made in the determination and monitoring of soil quality. This paper briefly discuss the changing circumstances which have resulted in the increased awareness of the importance of soil as a key component of both natural and human influenced environmental systems. These changed cir...

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