Restoring biological soil crusts (biocrusts) in degraded drylands can contribute to recovery of ecosystem functions that have global implications, including erosion resistance and nutrient cycling. To examine techniques for restoring biocrusts, we conducted a replicated, factorial experiment on recently abandoned road surfaces by applying biocrust inoculation (salvaged and stored dry for two ye...

Nematodes are worm-shaped nearly microscopic animals, many of which are virtually invisible to the unaided eye when they are in the soil or within plant material. Of the known nematode species, approximately 50%, 25%, 15%, and 10% are free-living, marine, animal parasites, and plant parasitic nematodes (PPNs), respectively. Freeliving nematodes are very important in maintaining the soil bio-dyn...

Soil degradation has been associated with a lack of adequate consideration of soil ecosystem services. We demonstrate a broadly applicable method for mapping changes in the supply of two priority soil ecosystem services to support decisions about sustainable land-use configurations. We used a landscape-scale study area of 302 km(2) in northern Victoria, south-eastern Australia, which has been c...

Soil microbial activity is adversely affected by pollutants such as heavy metals, antibiotics and pesticides. Organic amendments including sewage sludge, municipal compost and vermicompost are recently used to improve soil structure and fertility. But, these materials contain heavy metals including Pb, Cd, Zn, Ni and Cu that are toxic to soil microorganisms and may lead to occurrence of more to...

A greenhouse pot test was conducted to study the impacts of replacing mineral fertilizer with organic fertilizers for one full growing period on soil fertility, tomato yield and quality using soils with different tomato planting history. Four types of fertilization regimes were compared: (1) conventional fertilizer with urea, (2) chicken manure compost, (3) vermicompost, and (4) no fertilizer. ...

Water plays a crucial role in soil organic matter (SOM) having various different functions such as transport of material, elution of ,e. g., pollutants in soil, and also the sequestration of humic substances. Furthermore, the generation and quantification of hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions in soil has several effects on SOM which can also include the storage amount and time of certain mater...

the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of reforestation on physical and chemical soil properties particularly soil carbon storage in the berenjastanak forest. forestations were including acer velotinum boiss., fraxinus excelsior l., populus nigra l. and pinus brutia ten. a witness forest with mixed species was selected as region potential. four soil profiles were drilled in each fo...

Soil quality assessment may be one of the most contentious topics ever debated by the soil science community. Our objective is to examine the history, present status, and potential for using soil quality assessment as a tool to monitor soil physical, chemical, and biological effects of management decisions that may affect soil and water resources. Differences between inherent and dynamic soil q...

Agricultural sustainability has become a major concern in arid regions of China. In order to better understand the influence of continuous cropping on soil quality, six experimental fields were established in the Alar Oasis of Xinjiang, including uncultivated land (as a zero year treatment duration) and five different continuous cropping years on cotton fields, with different cropping durations...

Accurate measurements of soil macronutrients (i.e., nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) are needed for efficient agricultural production, including site-specific crop management (SSCM), where fertilizer nutrient application rates are adjusted spatially based on local requirements. Rapid, non-destructive quantification of soil properties, including nutrient levels, has been possible with optica...