Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) colonize plant interspaces in many drylands and are critical to soil nutrient cycling. Multiple climate change and land use factors have been shown to detrimentally impact biocrusts on a macroscopic (i.e., visual) scale. However, the impact of these perturbations on the bacterial components of the biocrusts remains poorly understood. We employed multiple long-...

Belowground interactions between herbaceous native species and nonnative species is a poorly understood but emerging area of interest to invasive-species researchers. Positive feedback dynamics are commonly observed in many invaded systems and have been suspected in California grasslands, where native plants associate strongly with soil mutualists such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. In respon...

The U.S. Air Force used the chlorinated pesticide, chlordane, to control termites around base housing until it was banned in 1988. As bases are closed, contracted, or realigned, soil issues associated with this pesticide must be addressed. One issue that is not well understood is chlordane volatility. There are documented cases where chlordane applied to soil resulted in vapor intrusion into bu...

This study’s aim was to calculate the weathering rates of Ca and Mg for five boreal forest soils in southern Finland on granitic gabbro containing bedrock. The effect mineralogy total concentrations soil evaluated. also estimate mechanical disturbance related ploughing area. SiO2, CaO, MgO, Zr were determined by XRF, based changes concentrations. Ca+Mg varied 5–38 mmolc m–2 year–1 E+B/BC horizo...

—Disturbance events, such as fire, have a major impact on boreal forest dynamics, succession and the global carbon cycle. Methods using satellite imagery are well established for detecting forest fires in real time and mapping the burned area (fire scars) within one year of the fire. This paper focuses on the detection of older fire disturbance-regeneration patterns in the boreal forests of Can...

[1] Soil temperature and moisture are important factors that control many ecosystem processes. However, interactions between soil thermal and hydrological processes are not adequately understood in cold regions, where the frozen soil, fire disturbance, and soil drainage play important roles in controlling interactions among these processes. These interactions were investigated with a new ecosys...

Supplemental material available online. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 79:1470–1481. doi:10.2136/sssaj2015.03.0101 Received 13 Mar. 2015 Accepted 13 July 2015. *Corresponding author ([email protected]). © Soil Science Society of America, 5585 Guilford Rd., Madison WI 53711 USA. All Rights reserved. Influence of Forest Disturbance on Stable Nitrogen Isotope Ratios in Soil and Vegetation Profiles Forest, ...

Mineralizable nitrogen (min-N) often correlates well with plant-available nitrogen (N) in soils, and might serve as a useful indicator of whether soils are detrimentally affected by timber harvesting practices. We examined how min-N responded to soil compaction and site organic matter removal after 1 and 5 years on three sites in central British Columbia. Mineral soil min-N was found to change ...