In most ecosystems, the degradation of complex organic material depends on extracellular enzymes produced by microbes. These enzymes can exist in bound or free form within the soil, but the dynamics of these different enzyme pools remain uncertain. To address this uncertainty, I determined rates of enzyme turnover in a volcanic soil with and without added enzymes. I also tested whether or not s...

Soil physical properties have an important role on vegetation growththrough affecting the development of root system. The aim of this study was toinvestigate the trampling effect of livestock grazing on soil physical properties andvegetation cover changes. The experiment was conducted on three range conditionsites (Reference, Key and Critical area) with ten frequencies in HosseinabadeKudistan i...

The evaluation of soil susceptibility to runoff and water erosion in the field is often expensive or time-consuming. Several authors have reported that susceptibility is linked to aggregate stability, whose determination is far easier. However, this susceptibility has generally been deduced from rainfall simulation experiments on sieved soil samples, whose behaviour is not always representative...

The formation and stabilization of soil aggregates play a key role in soil functions. To date, few studies have been performed on the variation of soil aggregation with increasing soil weathering degree. Here, soil aggregation and its influencing factors along the weathering gradient were investigated. Six typical zonal soils (derived from similar parent materials) were sampled from temperate t...

Quantitative knowledge of stabilizationand decomposition processes is necessary to understand, assess and predict effects of land use changes on storage and stability of soil organic carbon (soil C) in the tropics. Although it is well documented that different soil types have different soil C stocks, it is presently unknown how different soil types affect the stability of recently formed soil C...

BACKGROUND Over the past two decades many studies have demonstrated that plant species diversity promotes primary productivity and stability in grassland ecosystems. Additionally, soil community characteristics have also been shown to influence the productivity and composition of plant communities, yet little is known about whether soil communities also play a role in stabilizing the productivi...

Conversion of rice straw into biochar for soil amendment appears to be a promising method to increase long-term carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The stability of biochar in paddy soil, which is the major determining factor of carbon sequestration effect, depends mainly on soil properties and plant functions. However, the influence of plants on biochar stability in...

Most soil studies aim a better characterization of the system through indicators. In the present study nematofauna and soil structure were chosen as indicators to be assess soil health as related to agricultural practices. The field research was carried out on the two fodder cropping systems continuous maize (CM, Zea mays L.) and a 3-year rotation of silage-maize – silage-barley (Hordeum vulgar...

A continuum-based finite-element methodology is established for quantifying the stability of earthen embankments built on saturated soil deposits. Within the methodology the soil is treated as a fluid-solid porous medium, in which the soil skeleton’s constitutive behavior is modeled using a smooth elastoplastic cap model that features continuous coupling between deviatoric and volumetric plasti...