iron oxide minerals in soils provide valuable insights into pedogenic processes. a wealth of such information has been obtained by rock magnetic investigations on temperate soils but similar studies on tropical soils are rare. here, we report rock magnetic data on pristine soil profiles and surficial soils from five catchments in the tropical southern india and throw light on the pedogenic pro...

iron oxide minerals in soils provide valuable insights into pedogenic processes. a wealth of such information has been obtained by rock magnetic investigations on temperate soils but similar studies on tropical soils are rare. here, we report rock magnetic data on pristine soil profiles and surficial soils from five catchments in the tropical southern india and throw light on the pedogenic proc...

The persistence of Shiga-like toxin producing E. coli (STEC) strains in the agricultural soil creates serious threat to human health through fresh vegetables growing on them. However, the survival of STEC strains in Indian tropical soils is not yet understood thoroughly. Additionally how the survival of STEC strain in soil diverges with non-pathogenic and genetically modified E. coli strains is...

Ammonia oxidation is a key process in the global nitrogen cycle. However, in tropical soils, little is known about ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms and how characteristically variable oxygen regimes affect their activity. We investigated the influence of brief anaerobic periods on ammonia oxidation along an elevation, moisture, and oxygen availability gradient in wet tropical soils. Soils from ...

Peat and organic soils commonly occur as extremely soft, unconsolidated surficial deposits that are an integral part of the wetland systems. They may also occur as strata beneath other surficial deposits. These soils are problematic as they are very highly compressible and are of very low shear strength. In countries like Malaysia, peat and organic soils are found in abundance. Utilization of t...

UNLABELLED Tropical forest soils decompose litter rapidly with frequent episodes of anoxic conditions, making it likely that bacteria using alternate terminal electron acceptors (TEAs) play a large role in decomposition. This makes these soils useful templates for improving biofuel production. To investigate how TEAs affect decomposition, we cultivated feedstock-adapted consortia (FACs) derived...

Terra Preta soils of central Amazonia exhibit approximately three times more soil organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus and 70 times more charcoal compared to adjacent infertile soils. The Terra Preta soils were generated by pre-Columbian native populations by chance or intentionally adding large amounts of charred residues (charcoal), organic wastes, excrements and bones. In this paper, it i...

Throughout the world there is a strong evidence to support the link between poverty and soil conditions. In subsistence agriculture the wealth of people on low fertility sandy soils is much lower than those living on rich volcanic soils. But there are great differences between regions in the world and this talk focuses on historical developments in soil research in tropical and temperate region...

[1] Anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) is a considerable sink for the greenhouse gas methane (CH4) in marine systems, but the importance of this process in terrestrial systems is less clear. Lowland boreal soils and wet tropical soils are two hot spots for CH4 cycling, yet AOM has been essentially uncharacterized in these systems. We investigated AOM in soils from sites in Alaska and Puerto R...