A chicken growth study was conducted to determine if litter type influenced gut microbiota and performance in broilers. Seven bedding materials were investigated and included soft and hardwood sawdust, softwood shavings, shredded paper, chopped straw, rice hulls, and reused softwood shavings. Microbial profiling was done to investigate changes in cecal bacterial communities associated with litt...

Stomach contents of harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) collected in the Netherlands between 2003 and 2013 were inspected for the presence of plastic and other man-made litter. In 654 stomach samples the frequency of occurrence of plastic litter was 7% with less than 0.5% additional presence of non-synthetic man-made litter. However, we show that when a dedicated standard protocol for the det...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Litter often decomposes faster in its environment of origin (at 'home') than in a foreign environment ('away'), which has become known as the home-field advantage (HFA). However, many studies have highlighted the conditional nature of the HFA, suggesting that current understanding of this phenomenon is not yet sufficient to generalize across systems. METHODS The HFA hypoth...

Decomposition is a critical source of plant nutrients, and drives the largest flux of terrestrial C to the atmosphere. Decomposing soil organic matter typically contains litter from multiple plant species, yet we lack a mechanistic understanding of how species diversity influences decomposition processes. Here, we show that soil C and N cycling during decomposition are controlled by the composi...

Plant leaf litter is an important source of soil chemicals that are essential for the ecosystem and changes in leaf litter chemical traits during decomposition will determine the availability of multiple chemical elements recycling in the ecosystem. However, it is unclear whether the changes in litter chemical traits during decomposition and their similarities across species can be predicted, r...

Invasive exotic plant species are often expected to benefit exclusively from legacy effects of their litter inputs on soil processes and nutrient availability. However, there are relatively few experimental tests determining how litter of exotic plants affects their own growth conditions compared to congeneric native plant species. Here, we test how the legacy of litter from three exotic plant ...

Research has shown that aluminum sulfate (alum) and phosphoric acid greatly reduce ammonia (NH3) volatilization from poultry litter; however, no studies have yet reported the effects of these amendments on field-scale composting of poultry litter. The objectives of this study were to (i) evaluate NH3 volatilization from composting litter by measuring both NH3 volatilization and changes in total...

Phosphorus (P) in runoff from pastures amended with poultry litter may be a significant contributor to eutrophication of lakes and streams in Georgia and other areas in the southeastern United States. The objectives of this research were to determine the effects of litter application rate and initial runoff timing on the long-term loss of P in runoff from surface-applied poultry litter and to d...

A common practice in the commercial broiler industry is to reuse litter over multiple broiler flocks. Over time the bacterial populations in the reused litter increases but how those organisms are spatially distributed throughout the litter bed is unclear. Therefore, the goal of this project was to investigate the distribution of bacteria at three different depths of litter. Litter samples were...

We performed three experiments to examine the role of mothers in the development of litter-mate preferences in captive juvenile Belding's ground squirrels, Spermophilus beldingi. First, when observed in the absence of mothers, juveniles did not play preferentially with litter-mates, which suggests that mothers somehow influence the ontogeny of litter-mate preferences. Second, when mothers were ...