In order to follow the turnover of (137)Cs in natural soils and estimate future trends in exposure of livestock, samples of natural surface soils were collected at 0-3 cm depth at 464 sites in 1995 and 463 sites in 2005 covering the country. In both cases the geographical pattern observed was similar to the original distribution from 1986, but the decline of (137)Cs activity in the surface soil...

The pentacyclic triterpene 17 beta(H),21 beta(H)-hop-22(29)-ene (diploptene) occurs in sediments throughout the Columbia River drainage basin and off the southern coast of Washington state in concentrations comparable to long-chain plantwax n-alkanes. The same relationship is evident for diploptene and long-chain n-alkanes in soils from the Willamette Valley. Microorganisms indigenous to soil...

Short-rotation hardwood plantations generally require repeated applications of nitrogen (N) fertilizer to maintain desired growth and are being installed on two previous land uses: agricultural fields and cutover forest lands. Because the soil organic matter chemistry is different between agricultural field and cutover soils, indices of N availability developed for one land use or the other may...

The objective of this study was to examine the presence and diversity of Archaea within mineral and ornithogenic soils from 12 locations across the Ross Sea region. Archaea were not abundant but DNA sufficient for producing 16S rRNA gene clone libraries was extracted from 18 of 51 soil samples, from four locations. A total of 1452 clones were analysed by restriction fragment length polymorphism...

Human occupation is usually associated with degraded landscapes but 13,000 years of repeated occupation by British Columbia's coastal First Nations has had the opposite effect, enhancing temperate rainforest productivity. This is particularly the case over the last 6,000 years when intensified intertidal shellfish usage resulted in the accumulation of substantial shell middens. We show that soi...

Soil properties and soil-atmosphere fluxes of CO2, CH4 and N2O from four coastal wetlands were studied throughout the year, namely, native Kandelia obovata mangrove forest vs. exotic Sonneratia apetala mangrove forest, and native Cyperus malaccensis salt marsh vs. exotic Spartina alterniflora salt marsh. Soils of the four wetlands were all net sources of greenhouse gases while Sonneratia forest...

Soil salinity is a major abiotic stress adversely affecting plant growth and crop production worldwide. Increased salinization of arable land is expected to have destructive universal effects, resulting in 30 % land loss within the next 25 years and up to 50 % by the middle of twenty-first century (Porcel et al. 2012; Kapoor et al. 2013; Abdel Latef and Chaoxing 2014). The term ‘‘salinity’’ ref...