Monoculture causes nutrient losses and leads to declines in soil fertility and biomass production over successive cultivation. The rhizosphere, a zone of usually high microbial activities and clearly distinct from bulk soil, is defined as the volume of soil around living roots and influenced by root activities. Here we investigated enzyme activities and microbial biomass in the rhizosphere unde...

Published information is contradictory about the inhibitory or stimulatory effect of living roots on soil organic matter d~m~sition. In this study, i4C-labelled rye straw was exposed in fertilii or unfertilized soil with or without plants (winter rye, Se&e cereuIe) for 49 days under semi-controlled conditions. Our objective was to study the effect of roots on soil organic matter mineralization ...

The growth and biomass production by willow (Salix viminalis L.) was studied in lysimeters containing Oxford clay landfill cap soil with different amendments, bulk densities and watering regimes. Three years from planting, stem biomass in well-watered plants was least (0.28 kg plant(-1)) with high bulk density soil (1480 kg m(-3)) and no nutritional amendment but was increased 10-fold (2.53 kg ...

The patterns and drivers of soil microbial communities in forest plantations remain inadequate although they have been extensively studied in natural forest and grassland ecosystems. In this study, using data from 12 subtropical plantation sites, we found that the overstory tree biomass and tree cover increased with increasing plantation age. However, there was a decline in the aboveground biom...

Plant decomposition is dependant on the activity of the soil biota and its interactions with climate, soil properties, and plant residue inputs. This work assessed the roles of different groups of the soil biota on litter decomposition, and the way they are modulated by soil use. Litterbags of different mesh sizes for the selective exclusion of soil fauna by size (macro, meso, and microfauna) w...

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...

1. Soil infiltration capacity determines the partitioning of precipitation into and overland flow is therefore an important soil hydrological characteristic. Water through facilitated by macropores created roots macrofauna. In clay-rich soils, such as those tropical forests Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, most occurs via these preferential pathways. 2. We evaluated effects dung beetle tunnelling on ma...

The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of bacterial biomass on the sorption and transport of three solutes (quinoline, naphthalene, and Ca) in a subsurface soil. Miscible displacement techniques were employed to measure sorption and transport of the above compounds during steady, saturated water flow in sterile and/or bacterium-inoculated soil columns. The soil was inoculated...