The landscapes colonized by invasive earthworms in the eastern U.S. are often patchworks of forest stands in various stages of successional development. We established six field sites in tulip poplar dominated forests in the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, MD, that span mid (50–70 years-three plots) and late (120– 150 years-three plots) successional stages where younger ...

Bringing together emerging lessons from biophysical and social sciences as well as newly available data, we take stock of what can be learned about the relationship among subjective (reported) and objective (measured) soil fertility and farmer input use in east Africa. We identify the correlates of Kenyan and Tanzanian maize farmers’ reported perceptions of soil fertility and assess the extent ...

Fungal and actinobacterial communities were analyzed together with soil chemistry and enzyme activities in order to profile the microbial diversity associated with the economically important mushroom Tricholoma matsutake. Samples of mycelium-soil aggregation (shiro) were collected from three experimental sites where sporocarps naturally formed. PCR was used to confirm the presence and absence o...

While grassland restorations have gained recent popularity throughout the United States, few restorations have been initiated on the highly weathered soils of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain; thus potential soil response to grassland management practices, such as prescribed burning, are not clearly understood in this region. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impacts of prescribed b...

Forest development patterns following wildfire are known to influence the physical and chemical attributes of soils at different points in time, and are further thought to influence ectomycorrhizal (ECM) community structure. We used molecular methods to compare belowground ECM species richness, composition, and abundance between adjacent stands of homogenous lodgepole pine (established after a ...

soil productivity is generally associated with poor nutrient status and the physical condition of the soil, but the effect of soil mineralogy on soil productivity has received little attention. in this qualitative study, interactions between mineralogy and physico-chemistry and their role on the productivity of two luvisols, an arenosol and a vertisol are investigated. minerals identified in th...

RHOADES, C.C., and BINKLEY, D. 1992. Spatial extent of impact of red alder on soil chemistry of adjacent conifer stands. Can. J. For. Res. 22: 1434-1437. We examined patterns in soil N availability and pH along transects extending from mixed stands of conifers (mostly Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco)) and red alder (A/nus rubra Bong.) to pure conifer stands at two locations. A...

Most research on boundaries between vegetation types emphasizes the contrasts and similarities between conditions on either side of a boundary, but does not compare boundary to non-boundary vegetation. That is, most previous studies lack suitable controls, and may therefore overlook underlying aspects of landscape variability at a regional scale and underestimate the effects that the vegetation...