Plant root exudates contain various organic and inorganic components that include glucose, citric and oxalic acid. These components affect rhizosphere microbial and microfaunal activities, but the mechanisms are not fully known. Studies concerned from degraded grassland ecosystems with low soil carbon (C) contents are rare, in spite of the global distribution of grasslands in need of restoratio...

Global ecosystem models may require microbial components to accurately predict feedbacks between climate warming and soil decomposition, but it is unclear what parameters and levels of complexity are ideal for scaling up to the globe. Here we conducted a model comparison using a conventional model with first-order decay and three microbial models of increasing complexity that simulate shortto l...

When agricultural land is no longer used for cultivation and allowed to revert to natural vegetation or replanted to perennial vegetation, soil organic carbon can accumulate by processes that essentially reverse some of the effects responsible for soil organic carbon losses from when the land was converted from perennial vegetation. We discuss the essential elements of what is known about soil ...

Spartina alterniflora is an invasive C4 perennial grass, native to North America, and has spread rapidly along the east coast of China since its introduction in 1979. Since its intentional introduction to the Jiuduansha Island in the Yangtze River estuary, Spartina alterniflora community has become one of the dominant vegetation types. We investigated the soil carbon in the Spartina alterniflor...

this study analyzed the relationship between the vertical distribution of root biomass and soil organic carbon (soc)content in the arid shrub lands of semnan province in iran. three sites were selected based on differences in canopy coverof artemisia sieberi (5%, 10% and 15%). average density of shrubs, root biomass and soc were determined at differentdepths (0-20, 20-40, 40-60, 60-80 cm) in 20...

The response of soil properties to vegetation types is still not well understood and the relationship between vegetation types and soil properties has not been quantified in highland grasslands. A field experiment was conducted in highland grassland of the Loess Plateau in China to study the distribution of soil properties under different vegetation. 22 plant communities totaling 17 species tha...

Livestock grazing is one of the most important kinds of land usage that has a high potential to decrease or increase carbon storage in rangeland ecosystem. This research was investigated the effects of enclosure on soil carbon storage in a rangeland with dominant plants of Artemisia aucheri. Hence, two rangelands of enclosure (Shahtappeh-Chah Mahmood) and no enclosure (Chiro) were chosen in Sem...

Northern Hemisphere permafrost affected land areas contain about twice as much carbon as the global atmosphere. This vast carbon pool is vulnerable to accelerated losses through mobilization and decomposition under projected global warming. Satellite data records spanning the past 3 decades indicate widespread reductions (∼ 0.8– 1.3 days decade) in the mean annual snow cover extent and frozen-s...

It is well known that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) (and other greenhouse gases) have increased markedly as a result of human activity since the industrial revolution. It is perhaps less appreciated that natural and managed soils are an important source and sink for atmospheric CO2 and that, primarily as a result of the activities of soil microorganisms, there is a soil-der...

Soils are localized between base rock, atmosphere and vegetation, and represent a home for numerous organisms and the place of countless biogeochemical transformation and transfer processes. In addition, soils store many substances that are essential to maintain human life and ecosystem processes. Therefore, soils have been a research focus for more than a century and soil science has deep conn...