Introduction: Urban soils are large pools of carbon, nitrogen, and other elements, supporting plant growth, sustaining biogeochemical cycles, and serving as the foundation for maintaining ecosystem function and services of urban green spaces (UGS). Quantifying urban soil properties is essential for assessing urban ecosystem services and detecting pollution. Characterizing spatial heterogeneity ...

chlorotica Aporrectodea rosea X-ray tomography Burrow networks Microcosms Earthworms are considered as key actors of soil processes at different spatial and temporal scales and provide essential ecosystem services linked to climate regulation or primary production. However, little is known about their basic functional roles (e.g. organic matter decomposition, soil structuring processes) in pert...

Urban agriculture is growing in cities across the United States. It has the potential to provide multiple benefits, including increased food security. Concerns about soil contamination in urban areas can be an impediment to urban agriculture. Lead is the most common contaminant in urban areas. In this paper, direct (soil ingestion via outdoor and indoor exposure) and indirect (consumption of fo...

Urban agriculture (UA) has a long tradition in many countries worldwide, is actively engaging about 800 million people, and is now increasingly considered by urban planning and land-use personnel. Urban cropland, in particular, covers more than 67 Mha or more than 5% of the total global cropland area. Urban agriculture practices have many benefits and, in particular, may contribute to food secu...

The world’s first satellite dedicated to soil moisture measurement was launched by the European Space Agency on 2nd November 2009. One objective of this Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is to obtain global near-surface (top ~5 cm) soil moisture every 2 to 3 days with a target accuracy of 0.04 m/m. To achieve this goal, the Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis (MIR...

Soil sealing has negative impacts on ecosystem services since urban green and soil get lost. Although there is political commitment to stop further sealing, no reversal of this trend can be observed in Europe. This paper raises the questions (1) which strategies can be regarded as being efficient toward ecologically sustainable management of urban soil sealing and (2) who has competences and sh...

Numerous studies have implicated urbanization as a major cause of loss of biodiversity. Most of them have focused on plants and animals, even though soil microorganisms make up a large proportion of that biodiversity. However, it is unclear how the soil bacterial community is affected by urban development. Here, paired-end Illumina sequencing of the 16 S rRNA gene at V4 region was performed to ...

Urbanization is accelerating globally, causing a variety of environmental changes such as increases in air temperature, precipitation, atmospheric CO2, and nitrogen (N) deposition. However, the effects of these changes on forest soil carbon (C) sequestration remain largely unclear. Here, we used urban-to-rural environmental gradients in Guangdong Province, southern China, to address the potenti...

Soil microbes play a key role in controlling ecosystem functions and providing ecosystem services. Yet, microbial communities in urban green space soils remain poorly characterized. Here we compared soil microbial communities in 41 urban parks of (i) divergent plant functional types (evergreen trees, deciduous trees and lawn) and (ii) different ages (constructed 10, ∼50 and >100 years ago). The...