Recently discovered As-hyperaccumulator ferns hold promise for phytoremediation of As-polluted soils. We investigated changes in the rhizosphere characteristics of Pteris vittata (Chinese Brake fern) relevant for its use in phytoextraction. Plants were grown in rhizoboxes filled with soil containing 2270 mg kg(-1) As. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in rhizosphere soil solution we...

Biocontrol inoculants often show inconsistency in their efficacy at field scale and the reason for this remains often unclear. A high rhizosphere competence of inoculant strains is assumed to be a key factor for successful biocontrol effects as the biocontrol strain has to compete with the indigenous microbial community in the rhizosphere. It is known that many factors, among them plant species...

Stable carbon isotopes are used extensively to partition total soil CO2 efflux into root-derived rhizosphere respiration or autotrophic respiration and soil-derived heterotrophic respiration. However, it remains unclear whether CO2 from rhizosphere respiration has the same δC value as root biomass. Here we investigated the magnitude of C isotope fractionation during rhizosphere respiration rela...

or a suppressive influence on SOM decomposition (Van Veen et al., 1991; Cheng, 1999). As a measure of main Plant species and soil fertility presumably control rhizosphere efenergy use for the acquisition of belowground resources fects on soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition, but qualitative (e.g., nutrients and water), rhizosphere respiration may and quantitative descriptions of such control...

As plant roots take up water and the soil dries, water depletion is expected to occur in the vicinity of roots, the so called rhizosphere. However, recent experiments showed that the rhizosphere of lupines was wetter than the bulk soil during the drying period. Surprisingly, the rhizosphere remained temporarily dry after irrigation. Such water dynamics in the rhizosphere can be explained by the...

rhizosphere has different chemical and biological properties from the bulk soil. information about phosphorus (p) availability in the rhizosphere soils treated with municipal sewage sludge (mss) is limited. therefore, the objectives of this research were to evaluate the rhizospheric effects of wheat (triticum aestivum l.) on phosphorus availability and biological properties in 10 calcareous soi...

To understand how microbial communities and functional genes respond to arsenic contamination in the rhizosphere of Pteris vittata, five soil samples with different arsenic contamination levels were collected from the rhizosphere of P. vittata and nonrhizosphere areas and investigated by Biolog, geochemical, and functional gene microarray (GeoChip 3.0) analyses. Biolog analysis revealed that th...

The rhizosphere, the thin layer of soil surrounding and influenced by plant roots, defines a distinct and selective microbial habitat compared to unplanted soil. The microbial communities inhabiting the rhizosphere, the rhizosphere microbiota, engage in interactions with their host plants which span from parasitism to mutualism. Therefore, the rhizosphere microbiota emerges as one of the determ...

The rhizosphere is a zone of fundamental importance for understanding the dynamics of nutrient acquisition by plant roots. The canonical difficulty of experimentally investigating the rhizosphere led long ago to the adoption of mathematical models, the most sophisticated of which now incorporate explicit representations of root hairs and rhizosphere soil. Mathematical upscaling regimes, such as...

Root activity can modify the chemistry of the rhizosphere and alter phosphorus (P) availability and uptake. However, until recently, relatively little was known about the dynamics of soil solution P at the root surface because of our inability to measure in situ changes in solution P at the plant root. A mini-rhizotron experiment with corn (Zea mays L. cv. Stine 2250), soybean [Glycine max (L.)...