In deciduous forests, soil moisture is an important driver of numerous physical, microbial, and biogeochemical processes. Therefore, characterizing the interactions between vegetation and soil moisture is critical to forecast long-term water resources and ecosystem health. However, these interactions are difficult to measure, both in time and space. Recent studies have shown the ability of elec...

Objective: To highlight the need and the potential for an integrated understanding of three key soil-based drivers of plant community structure and dynamics – soil fertility, soil heterogeneity, and microbes. Location: European and North American grasslands. Methods: Review and discussion of conceptual models and empirical literature, including examples of observational and manipulative studies...

Forest soils store vast amounts of terrestrial carbon, but we are still limited in mechanistic understanding on how soil organic carbon (SOC) stabilization or turnover is controlled by biotic and abiotic factors in forest ecosystems. We used phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) as biomarker to study soil microbial community structure and measured activities of five extracellular enzymes involved in...

Design spectrum is known as an essential tool in earthquake engineering for calculation of maximum (design) responses in a structural system. Soil-structure interaction (SSI), as a phenomenon of coupling of responses of a structure and its underlying soil, was explored after introduction of design spectra and has not been taken into account in developing a design spectrum traditionally. To cons...

Understanding the effects of root-associated microbes in explaining plant community patterns represents a challenge in community ecology. Although typically overlooked, several lines of evidence point out that nonmycorrhizal, root endophytic fungi in the Ascomycota may have the potential to drive changes in plant community ecology given their ubiquitous presence, wide host ranges, and plant spe...

This research is to assess the influences of inertial mass from girder on dynamic characteristic, response, and structure-soil interaction a pile-soil-pier subsystem in scale-model cable-stayed bridge. Therefore, both connection configurations between girder, including sliding fixed connections, were designed present various superstructure delivered pile-soil-pier. The supported by 3 × pile-gro...