The soil supports plants, is the physical determinant of root growth and extent, and is the main reservoir for plant-available water and nutrients. Therefore, the soil controls the availability of most essential plant nutrients. It regulates availability by means of biophysiochemical processes, which are functions of soil and plant properties. This chapter introduces the concept of soil nutrien...

Increased availability of nanoparticle-based products will, inevitably, expose the environment to these materials. Engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) may thus find their way into the soil environment via wastewater, dumpsters and other anthropogenic sources; metallic oxide nanoparticles comprise one group of ENPs that could potentially be hazardous for the environment. Because the soil bacterial c...

β-glucosidase (E.C. 3.2.1.21), an enzyme involved in cellulose degradation, plays an important role in the soil organic carbon cycle. Cellulose is the most abundant organic compound in the biosphere so a product of its enzymatic hydrolysis is important as an energy source for soil microorganisms. Since β-glucosidase is very sensitive to different factors, determination of its activity might be ...

Soil is a major contributor to the biosphere–atmosphere exchange of carbonyl sulfide (COS) and carbon monoxide (CO). COS is a tracer to quantify terrestrial photosynthesis based on the coupled leaf uptake of COS and CO2, but such use requires separating soil COS flux, which is unrelated to photosynthesis, from ecosystem COS uptake. For CO, soil is a significant natural sink that influences the ...

The effects of phosphate processing wastewater (PPWW) on heavy metal accumulation in a Mediterranean soil (Tunisia, North Africa) were investigated. Moreover, the residual toxicities of PPWW-irrigated soils extracts were assessed. Results showed that heavy metal accumulation was significantly higher in PPWW-irrigated soil extracts than in control soil. The heavy metal accumulation increased ove...

Pesticides are typically applied as mixtures and or sequentially to soil and plants during crop production. A common scenario is herbicide application at planting followed by sequential fungicide applications post-emergence. Fungicides depending on their spectrum of activity may alter and impact soil microbial communities. Thus there is a potential to impact soil processes responsible for herbi...

Elevated nitrogen (N) deposition in humid tropical regions may exacerbate phosphorus (P) deficiency in forests on highly weathered soils. However, it is not clear how P availability affects soil microbes and soil carbon (C), or how P processes interact with N deposition in tropical forests. We examined the effects of N and P additions on soil microbes and soil C pools in a N-saturated old-growt...

It is important to develop Martian soil simulants that can be used in Mars exploration programs and Mars research. A new Martian soil simulant, called Jining Martian Soil Simulant (JMSS-1), was developed at the Lunar and Planetary Science Research Center at the Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The raw materials of JMSS-1 are Jining basalt and Fe oxides (magnetite and hema...

Understanding the fates of soil hydrological processes and nitrogen (N) is essential for optimizing the water and N in a dryland crop system with the goal of obtaining a maximum yield. Few investigations have addressed the dynamics of dryland N and its association with the soil hydrological process in a freeze-thawing agricultural area. With the daily monitoring of soil water content and acquis...

Soil greenhouse gas fluxes (particularly CO(2), CH(4), and N(2)O) play important roles in climate change. However, despite the importance of these soil greenhouse gases, the number of reports on global soil greenhouse gas fluxes is limited. Here, new estimates are presented for global soil CO(2) emission (total soil respiration), CH(4) uptake, and N(2)O emission fluxes, using a simple data-orie...