Microbial biomass C, soil respiration and CH4 emissions were measured during the whole rice growth period in rice paddies in black earth. The results showed microbial biomass C and soil respiration were depressed significantly by application of slow-releasing urea at the early stage of rice growth period (P<0.05), but were almost not affected by intermittent irrigation . CH4 emission, on the av...

The long-term application of excessive chemical fertilizers has resulted in the degeneration of soil quality parameters such as soil microbial biomass, communities, and nutrient content, which in turn affects crop health, productivity, and soil sustainable productivity. The objective of this study was to develop a rapid and efficient solution for rehabilitating degraded cropland soils by precis...

Assimilable organic carbon (AOC) is commonly used to measure the growth potential of microorganisms in water, but has not yet been investigated for measuring microbial growth potential in soils. In this study, a simple, rapid, and non-growth based assay to determine AOC in soil was developed using a naturally occurring luminous strain Vibrio harveyi BB721 to determine the fraction of low molecu...

INTRODUCTION To promote rational and sustainable use of soil resources and to maintain the urban soil quality, it is essential to assess urban ecosystem health. In this study, the microbiological properties of urban soils in Beijing and their spatial distribution patterns across the city were evaluated based on measurements of microbial biomass carbon and urease and invertase activities of the ...

Potential C and N mineralization and soil microbial biomass C were determined following disturbance (i.e. drying and sieving) pretreatments in ®ve soils varying in texture (30±350 mg clay gÿ1 soil) from the southern Piedmont USA. Soil disturbance by drying (i.e. rewetting following drying at 558C for 72 h) of intact soil cores resulted in a ̄ush of C mineralization (70% to 2.5-fold greater) dur...

In grassland ecosystems, N and P fertilization often increase plant productivity, but there is no concensus if fertilization affects soil C fractions. We tested effects of N, P and N+P fertilization at 5, 10, 15 g m-2 yr-1 (N5, N10, N15, P5, P10, P15, N5P5, N10P10, and N15P15) compared to unfertilized control on soil C, soil microbial biomass and functional diversity at the 0-20 cm and 20-40 cm...

Climate-induced changes in soil microbial physiology impact ecosystem carbon (C) storage and alter the rate of CO2 flux from soils to the atmosphere (Allison et al., 2010). The direction and magnitude of these microbial feedbacks depend on changes in saprotrophic bacterial and fungal C allocation in response to altered temperature, precipitation, and nutrient availability. Soil microbes may dif...

Land use changes strongly impact soil functions, particularly microbial biomass diversity and activity. We hypothesized that the catabolic respiration response of the microbial biomass would differ depending on land use and that these differences would be consistent at the landscape scale. In the present study, we analyzed the catabolic response profile of the soil microbial biomass through sub...

Land use intensification is associated with loss of biodiversity and altered ecosystem functioning. Until now most studies on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning focused on random loss of species, while loss of rare species that usually are the first to disappear received less attention. Here we test if the effect of rare microbial species loss on plant productivity ...