Fertilization has a large impact on the soil microbial communities, which play pivotal roles in soil biogeochemical cycling and ecological processes. While the effects of changes in nutrient availability due to fertilization on the soil microbial communities have received considerable attention, specific microbial taxa strongly influenced by long-term organic and inorganic fertilization, their ...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of cover crop mixture diversity on cover crop function. Specifically, this study evaluated the effect of cover crop species and functional richness on aboveground biomass productivity, weed suppression, soil nutrient retention, soil microbial community characteristics, and performance stability. Twenty to forty cover crop treatments were re...

7 Chapter Soil factors are an important consideration for successful wildland range development or improvement programs. Even though many soil improvement and amelioration practices are not realistic for wildlands, their evaluation is an important step in selection of adapted plant materials for revegetation. This chapter presents information for wildland managers on: the importance of soils ph...

Site classification in the biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification system is based on three differentiating properties: climatic regimes (expressed by biogeoclimatic subzones or variants), soil moisture regimes (SMRs), and soil nutrient regimes (SNRs). A SNR represents a segment of a regional soil nutrient gradient, i.e., soils which provide similar levels of plant-available nutrients over a lo...

Soil degradation, including rocky desertification, of the karst regions in China is severe. Karst landscapes are especially sensitive to soil degradation as carbonate rocks are nutrient-poor and easily eroded. Understanding the balance between soil formation and soil erosion is critical for long-term soil sustainability, yet little is known about the initial soil forming processes on karst terr...

Aim This first global quantification of the relationship between leaf traits and soil nutrient fertility reflects the trade-off between growth and nutrient conservation. The power of soils versus climate in predicting leaf trait values is assessed in bivariate and multivariate analyses and is compared with the distribution of growth forms (as a discrete classification of vegetation) across grad...

With consideration of the decentralization of wheat fertilization management and status in quo in Henan province, the paper mainly designed county wheat decision-making System of survey and directions for soil Based on GIS. By collecting 3773 records of survey and directions for soil in 976 vilages, Hua county, protracting all kinds of vectorgraphs about villages, towns and the soil survey poin...

Recent research has shown that biodiversity may has its greatest impact on ecosystem functioning in heterogeneous environments. However, the role of soil heterogeneity as a modulator of ecosystem responses to changes in biodiversity remains poorly understood, as few biodiversity studies have explicitly considered this important ecosystem feature.We conducted a microcosm experiment over two grow...

Variability in the activity and composition of soil microbial communities may have important implications for the suite of microbially-derived ecosystem functions upon which agricultural systems rely, particularly organic agriculture. An on-farm approach was used to investigate microbial communities and soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) availability on 13 organically-managed fields growing Roma-...

A field study was conducted in a nutrient-impacted marsh in Water Conservation Area 2A (WCA-2A) of the Everglades in southern Florida, USA, to evaluate early stages of plant litter (detritus) decomposition along a well-documented trophic gradient, and to determine the relative importance of environmental factors and substrate composition in governing decomposition rate. Vertically stratified de...