Savannas cover about 20% of the Earth’s land area across a wide range of climatic conditions. As an important and distinct biome, savannas produce approximately 29% of global terrestrial net primary productivity. In these ecosystems the distribution of belowground resources remains poorly investigated and the relationship to the climatic conditions remains unclear. In the present study, vertica...

Soil microbes produce extracellular enzymes that mineralize organic matter and release carbon and nutrients in forms that can be assimilated. Economic theories of microbial metabolism predict that enzyme production should increase when simple nutrients are scarce and complex nutrients are abundant; however, resource limitation could also constrain enzyme production. We tested these hypotheses b...

Grassland fire, as an important ecological factor, is quite influential in determining the structural and functional stability of ecosystem. In this work, the fire-induced changes on the vegetation and soil microbial community were studied in alpine meadow. Microbial community composition was assessed by phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis, and functional diversity was determined by Biolog ...

Incorporation of forest slash during stand establishment is proposed as ameans of increasing soil carbon and nutrient stocks. If effective, the increased soil carbon and nutrient status may result in increased aboveground tree growth. Eight years after study installation, the impact of forest slash incorporation into the soil on soil carbon and nutrient stocks, foliar nutrients and loblolly pin...

Burkholderia pseudomallei is a soil-dwelling bacterium and the cause of melioidosis, which kills an estimated 89,000 people per year worldwide. Agricultural workers are at high risk of infection due to repeated exposure to the bacterium. Little is known about the soil physicochemical properties associated with the presence or absence of the organism. Here, we evaluated the soil physicochemical ...

Soils used for vegetable production in Florida are sandy, have low organic matter content and fertility, and can support the growth of soil-borne pathogens. Some growers choose to apply compost as an antagonistic suppression approach to combat soil-borne disease effects on crop yields or to increase organic matter and improve soil fertility. The objective of this on-farm study was to determine ...

Microbial activity is known to continue during the winter months in cold alpine and Arctic soils often resulting in high microbial biomass. Complex soil nutrient dynamics characterize the transition when soil temperatures approach and exceed 0 1C in spring. At the time of this transition in alphine soils microbial biomass declines dramatically together with soil pools of available nutrients. Th...

Background: In Himalayas, particularly Jammu and Kashmir, where 85% of people depend on agriculture and allied sectors, 70% of agriculture is rain-fed. While the Himalayas, highly seismic, contribute highest in sediment transported to the world oceans, surface soil is under threat due to erosion, and Rajouri district in western Himalayas is no exception. Various factors, especially land use pat...