Bioenergy crops have the potential to enhance soil carbon (C) pools fromincreased aggregation and the physical protection of organicmatter; however, our understanding of the variation in these processes over heterogeneous landscapes is limited. In particular, little is known about the relative importance of soil properties and root characteristics for the physical protection of particulate orga...

Tropical regions have been considered the world's primary agricultural frontier; however, some physico-chemical deficiencies, such as low soil organic matter content, poor soil structure, high erodibility, soil acidity, and aluminum toxicity, have affected their productive capacity. Lime and gypsum are commonly used to improve soil chemical fertility, but no information exists about the long-te...

Effects of different levels of compost application on the amounts and percentage distribution of organic N forms in whole soils and particle size fractions were investigated. Soil samples were collected from three plots: a) F, only chemical fertilizers; b) F + LC, chemical fertilizers plus low level of compost; (c) F + HC, chemical fertilizers plus high level of compost. Each soil sample was di...

Microbiological activity is a general term which includes all metabolic reactions and interactions of the soil microflora and macrofauna.1 Soil microorganisms contribute to soil fertility and aggregate formation in degraded soils.2 However, it is only during the last decades that ecologists have beginning to explore the underground communities and their functional significance for the plant com...

The understanding of the gaseous adsorption process and the parameters of volatile organic compounds such as organic solvents or fuels onto soils is very important in the analysis of the transport or fate of these chemicals in soils. Batch adsorption experiments with six different treatments were conducted to determine the adsorption of isohexane, a gaseous aliphatic, onto volcanic ash soil (Ta...

A soil aggregate is “a group of primary soil particles that cohere to each other more strongly than to other surrounding particles.” Soil aggregates form through the combined action of aggregation and fragmentation processes. That is, attractive and disruptive forces act on the particles in the soil to cause greater cohesion among some particles, and groups of particles, than others. Most soils...

Plant diversity loss impairs ecosystem functioning, including important effects on soil. Most studies that have explored plant diversity effects belowground, however, have largely focused on biological processes. As such, our understanding of how plant diversity impacts the soil physical environment remains limited, despite the fundamental role soil physical structure plays in ensuring soil fun...

Soil physical structure causes differential accessibility of soil organic carbon (SOC) to decomposer organisms and is an important determinant of SOC storage and turnover. Techniques for physical fractionation of soil organic matter in conjunction with isotopic analyses (dC, dN) of those soil fractions have been used previously to (a) determine where organic C is stored relative to aggregate st...

treatment temperature increased, especially at temperatures in excess of 450~ However, the strength decreases were small (less than 15%), and the concrete strength was still within typical values for structural concrete. The leachability tests showed that as treatment temperature was increased, levels of PAHs in the soil significantly decreased. From the leachability tests performed on samples ...

This review examines the effect of tillage on microbial habitat space, and the roles of microbes in in ̄uencing Ntransformation processes within a heterogeneous soil environment. Literature relating tillage to microbial processes is assessed critically focusing on (a) degrees of physical disruption and N-processes, (b) interactions between organisms and the soil pore network, and (c) the role of...