The grasslands on the sandy soils of the eastern edge of the Namib Desert of Namibia are strikingly punctuated by millions of mostly regularly-spaced circular bare spots 2 to 10 m or more in diameter, generally with a margin of taller grasses. The causes of these so called fairy circles are unknown, but several hypotheses have been advanced. In October 2009, we set up experiments that specifica...

Fairy circles are circular, barren structures in dry grasslands and the mechanisms generating maintaining them currently under intense discussion. Here, we analysed bacterial fungal communities Namib Desert fairy circle soils, tapetum lining of termite nests, gut prevailing sand Psammotermes allocerus, also neighbouring grass plants. The total active microbial were through amplicon sequencing b...

A study was conducted to determine the half-life (t1/2), degradation rate, and metabolites of metolachlor in a water-sediment system and in soil with and without switchgrass. Metolachlor degradation in a laboratory was determined in sediment from Bojac sandy loam soil incubated at 24 degrees C. The study also was conducted in a greenhouse on tilted beds filled with Bojac soil and planted with s...

The retrieval of the bare soil moisture content from TerraSAR-X data is discussed using empirical approaches. Two cases were evaluated: (1) one image at low or high incidence angle, (2) two images, one at low incidence and one at high incidence. This study shows in using three databases collected between 2008 and 2010 over two study sites in France (Orgeval and Villamblain) that TerraSAR-X is a...

This paper presents a large set of spectral and directional signatures of the polarized reflectance acquired over various surfaces. Two analytical physically-based models were developed, one for bare soils and the other for simple vegetation cover. They consider that the polarized reflectance is generated by single specular reflection over isotropically distributed facets or leaves. The models ...

Introduction: Soil has an important role in nutrient cycle and an important function in storage, refinement, and movement of nutrients for the living and non-living parts. Soil pollution of heavy metals and elements is one of the common pollution impacts of human activities, especially industry. Realization of distribution pattern of these elements and their anthropogenic sources is a major par...

Growth and productivity of plants are mainly affected by various environmentalfactors in different ecosystems and natural habitat in the world. This research aims to studythe existing relationships between the phytosociology characteristics of Thymuskotschyanus and environmental factors in order to find the most important factorsgoverning development of the species in middle Taleghan rangelands...