Soil microbial communities are very sensitive to changes in land use and are often used as indicators of soil fertility. We evaluated the microbial communities in the soils of four types of vegetation (cropland (CP), natural grassland (NG), broadleaf forest (BF) and coniferous forest (CF)) at depths of 0–10 and 10–20 cm on the Loess Plateau in China using phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) profilin...

This study aims to evaluate the effect of different afforestation models on soil microbial composition in the Loess Plateau in China. In particular, we determined soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, and microbial community structures in the top 0 cm to 10 cm soil underneath a pure Hippophae rhamnoides (SS) stand and three mixed stands, namely, H. rhamnoides and Robinia pseucdoac...

Most terrestrial ecosystems are nitrogen (N)-limited. The elucidation of the multivariate relationships among environmental drivers, leaf morphological traits, and foliar N of dominant species which are critical to the functioning of forests remains a critical challenge for ecologists. We sampled leaves of Quercus wutaishanica across a broad natural gradient in the Loess Plateau, China, and emp...

To evaluate the applicability of leaf and canopy photosynthesis models, we compared performance of 6 leaf models and validated 1 canopy model of photosynthesis based on field data of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) plantations on a Loess Plateau in northern China. Leaf photosynthetic light response curves and diurnal canopy photosynthetic rates were observed in the field in August 2009. ...

Abstract Loess sequences of the Chinese Plateau (CLP) compose one most complete Neogene–Quaternary terrestrial paleoclimatic archives. Understanding CLP's sediment sources is critical to tracing Asian aridification, atmospheric circulation patterns, and monsoon evolution. Commonly, sediments that Quaternary strata CLP are considered largely homogeneous, thus numerous studies have applied a unif...

Similar land-use types usually have similar soil properties, and, most likely, similar microbial communities. Here, we assessed whether land-use types or soil chemical properties are the primary drivers of soil microbial community composition, and how changes in one part of the ecosystem affect another. We applied Ion Torrent sequencing to the bacterial and fungal communities of five different ...

Agriculture can evolve independently only where intensive hunter-gatherer plant use has previously evolved, and both developments are limited by two major evolutionary constraints: climatic variability and social convention. During the Pleistocene, environmental variability constrained plant productivity and therefore plant-intensive subsistence; but during the Holocene it was the hunter-gather...

Robinia pseudoacacia L. (black locust) is a widely planted tree species on Loess Plateau for revegetation. Due to its symbiosis forming capability with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, we explored the influence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on plant biomass, root morphology, root tensile strength and soil aggregate stability in a pot experiment. We inoculated R. pseudoacacia with/without AM...

Understanding the relationships between vegetative and environmental variables is important for revegetation and ecosystem management on the Loess Plateau, China. Lucerne (Medicago sativa L.) has been widely used in the region to improve revegetation, soil and water conservation, and to enhance livestock production. However, there is little information on how environmental factors influence lon...

In the hilly regions of China, developing sustainable agriculture requires implementing conservation management practices that prevent soil erosion and conserve soil and water resources. In the semiarid northwest Loess Plateau, the primary conservation management practice is terracing. Numerical simulation of soil water dynamics in terraces is potentially an efficient means of investigating the...