Forty-six trace elements in coastal Casuarina equisetifolia plant-soil systems at nine sampling sites on Hainan Island were analyzed using ICP-MS. The relationships among the trace elements of the same group or the same periodicity of the Periodic Table in the plants and soils were complex and no consistent patterns were found. More combinations of elements occurred with high positive correlati...

Coastal wetlands can have exceptionally large carbon (C) stocks and their protection and restoration would constitute an effective mitigation strategy to climate change. Inclusion of coastal ecosystems in mitigation strategies requires quantification of carbon stocks in order to calculate emissions or sequestration through time. In this study, we quantified the ecosystem C stocks of coastal wet...

Understanding the molecular mechanism of adaptive evolution in plants provides insights into the selective forces driving adaptation and the genetic basis of adaptive traits with agricultural value. The genomic resources available for Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) make it well suited to the rapid molecular dissection of adaptive processes. Although numerous potentially adaptive loci have b...

Inland vertebrate predators could enrich of nutrients the local top soils in the area surrounding their nests and dens by depositing faeces, urine, and prey remains and, thus, alter the dynamics of plant populations. Surprisingly, and in contrast with convincing evidence from coastal habitats, whether and how this phenomenon occurs in inland habitats is largely uncertain even though these habit...

Both plant invasion and nitrogen (N) enrichment should have significant impact on mangrove ecosystems in coastal regions around the world. However, how N2O efflux in mangrove wetlands responds to these environmental changes has not been well studied. Here, we conducted a mesocosm experiment with native mangrove species Kandelia obovata, invasive salt marsh species Spartina alterniflora, and the...

Parent materials greatly influence soil development and the distribution of soils on the southeastern US Coastal Plain. We examined the physical, chemical, and mineralogical properties of 11 pedons in a 1-ha plot on the Upper Coastal Plain of Georgia, USA. Uniformity of parent materials was assessed by sand grain size characteristics. The soils have sandy epipedons of variable thickness and arg...

Plant taxa identified in 90 U.S. Great Lakes coastal emergent wetlands were evaluated as indicators of physical environment. Canonical correspondence analysis using the 40 most common taxa showed that water depth and tussock height explained the greatest amount of species-environment interaction among ten environmental factors measured as continuous variables (water depth, tussock height, latit...

[1] We conducted measurements of methane (CH4) emission and ecosystem respiration on >200 points across the Arctic coastal tundra near Barrow, Alaska, United States, in July 2007 and August 2008. This site contains broad diversity in tundra microtopography, including polygonal tundra, thaw lakes, and drained lake basins. In 2007, we surveyed CH4 emissions across this landscape, and found that s...

Largely influenced by the passage of the Swamp Land Act of 1849, many wetlands were lost in the coastal plain region of the southeastern United States, primarily as a result of drainage for agricultural activities. To better understand the chemical response of soils during wetland conversion, soil core samples were collected from the converted beef cattle pastures and from the natural wetland a...