Implicit in discussions of plant nutrition and climate change is the assumption that we know what to do relative to nutrient management here and now but that these strategies might not apply in a changed climate. We review existing knowledge on interactive influences of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, temperature and soil moisture on plant growth, development and yield as well as on p...

Maintaining the soil chemical fertility is a key prerequisite to sustain crop productivity in the tropics. Several studies perceive that soil fertility decline is widely spread in tropical regions and that it is caused by inadequate nutrient replenishment and high losses as compared to natural ecosystems. Although this has been recognised for some decades, there is a need for hard data on soil ...

Studying on the spatial distribution and variation characteristics of soil fertility by Application of geographical information systems (GIS) and data mining(DM), with the quantitative analysis of spatial variability of soil fertility in complexity, and provide the effective way for simulations which can be closer to the farmland soil fertility variability. At the same time, interpolation metho...

Recent evidence suggests that soil nutrient heterogeneity, a ubiquitous feature of terrestrial ecosystems, modulates plant responses to ongoing global change (GC). However, we know little about the overall trends of such responses, the GC drivers involved, and the plant attributes affected.We synthesized literature to answer the question: Does soil heterogeneity significantly affect plant respo...

Accurate measurements of soil macronutrients (i.e., nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) are needed for efficient agricultural production, including site-specific crop management (SSCM), where fertilizer nutrient application rates are adjusted spatially based on local requirements. Rapid, non-destructive quantification of soil properties, including nutrient levels, has been possible with optica...

QUESTIONS Effects of soil on vegetation patterns are commonly obscured by other environmental factors; clear and general relationships are difficult to find. How would community assembly processes be affected by a substantial change in soil characteristics when all other relevant factors are held constant? In particular, can we identify some functional adaptations which would underpin such soil...

The effects of elevated CO2 on nutrient cycling and selected belowground processes in the closed-canopy sweetgum plantation were assessed as part of a free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiment at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. We hypothesized that nitrogen (N) constraints to growth response to elevated CO2 would be mitigated primarily by reduced tissue concentrations (resulting in increased biomass prod...

The placement of stiff‐stemmed grass hedges on the contour along a hillslope has been shown to decrease nutrient transport in runoff. This study was conducted to measure the effectiveness of a narrow grass hedge in reducing runoff nutrient transport from plots with a range of soil nutrient values. Composted beef cattle manure was applied at dry weights of 0, 68, 105, 142, and 178 Mg ha-1 to a s...

Saprotrophic fungal community composition, determined by the outcome of competitive mycelial interactions, is one of the many key factors affecting soil nutrient mineralisation and decomposition rates. Fungal communities are not generally predicted to be regulated by top-down factors, such as predation, but rather by bottom-up factors, including resource availability. We show that invertebrate ...

There has been much work on plant-feeding nematodes, and less on other soil nematodes, their distribution, abundance, intrinsic properties, and interactions with biotic and abiotic factors. Seasonal variation in nematode fauna as a whole is correlated with factors such as moisture, temperature, and plant growth; at each site nematode distribution generally reflects root distribution. There is a...