Nutrient uptake by trees is determined by root interception, soil availability, and tree demand. Fruit trees have low rooting density, especially in the case of dwarfing rootstocks. Mobility in the soil is a key factor in determining nutrient availability, and good management of nutrients requires that supply is matched to demand, in terms of amount, timing and retention in the root-zone, and t...

Willow (Salix spp.) is currently being researched as a source of biomass energy in Canada. However, it is not certain whether afforestation with willow plantations will enhance or diminish soil C storage and nutrient availability. Trees are known to have pronounced effects on biologically mediated nutrient cycling processes which can increase nutrient availability, but willows are known to be n...

Nutrient availability and herbivory can regulate primary production in ecosystems, but little is known about how, or whether, they may interact with one another. Here, we investigate how nitrogen availability and insect herbivory interact to alter aboveground and belowground plant community biomass in an old-Weld ecosystem. In 2004, we established 36 experimental plots in which we manipulated s...

Ecosystem nutrient cycling is often complex because nutrient dynamics within and between systems are mediated by the interaction of biological and geochemical conditions operating at different temporal and spatial scales. Vegetated patches in semiarid and wetland landscapes have been shown to exemplify some of these patterns and processes. We investigated biological and geochemical factors sugg...

Tropical rain forests play a dominant role in global biosphere-atmosphere CO(2) exchange. Although climate and nutrient availability regulate net primary production (NPP) and decomposition in all terrestrial ecosystems, the nature and extent of such controls in tropical forests remain poorly resolved. We conducted a meta-analysis of carbon-nutrient-climate relationships in 113 sites across the ...

This study, through an incubation experiment, evaluates the effect that different biomass ashes exert on the extractability of nutrients and some chemical parameters and dehydrogenase activity of a slightly acid soil. Three types of as were selected: two new ashes generated by the dry combustion of olive cake or by gasification of greenhouse vegetable wastes, and a third produced by wood combus...

Changes in soil nutrient availability during long-term ecosystem development influence the relative abundances of plant species with different nutrient-acquisition strategies. These changes in strategies are observed at the community level, but whether they also occur within individual species remains unknown. Plant species forming multiple root symbioses with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi,...

Forests strongly a ect climate through the exchange of large amounts of atmospheric CO2 (ref. 1). The main drivers of spatial variability in net ecosystem production (NEP) on a global scale are, however, poorly known. As increasing nutrient availability increases the production of biomass per unit of photosynthesis2 and reduces heterotrophic3 respiration in forests, we expected nutrients to det...

Nutrient dynamics in the Bela watershed, Nepal were examined using a range of GIS budget modelling and field analysis techniques. The fertility status analysis showed that soil acidity, phosphorus availability, and lack of base cations were the key soil fertility issues. Nutrient budget calculations revealed significant annual phosphorus deficits for maize rota­ tions, but only minor deficits i...

The niche theory predicts that environmental heterogeneity and species diversity are positively correlated in tropical forests, whereas the neutral theory suggests that stochastic processes are more important in determining species diversity. This study sought to investigate the effects of soil nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) heterogeneity on tree species diversity in the Xishuangbanna tropi...