There is increasing evidence that microbial volatiles (VOCs) play an important role in natural suppression of soil-borne diseases, but little is known on the factors that influence production of suppressing VOCs. In the current study we examined whether a stress-induced change in soil microbial community composition would affect the production by soils of VOCs suppressing the plant-pathogenic o...

Dense hyphal mats formed by ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi are prominent features in Douglas-fir forest ecosystems, and have been estimated to cover up to 40% of the soil surface in some forest stands. Two morphotypes of EcM mats have been previously described: rhizomorphic mats, which have thick hyphal rhizomorphs and are found primarily in the organic horizon, and hydrophobic mats, which occur i...

1. Organic matter decomposition is the main process by which carbon (C) is lost from terrestrial ecosystems, and mycorrhizal associations of plants (i.e. arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM) and ectomycorrhizas (ECM)) may have different indirect effects on this loss pathway. AM and ECM plants differ in the soil decomposers they promote and the quality of litter they produce, which may result in differen...

The retention of nutrients in narrow, vegetated riparian buffer strips (VBS) is uncertain and underlying processes are poorly understood. Evidence suggests that buffer soils are poor at retaining dissolved nutrients, especially phosphorus (P), necessitating management actions if P retention is not to be compromised. We sampled 19 buffer strips and adjacent arable field soils. Differences in nut...

This study compared the granulometric properties, mineralogical composition and concentrations of major and trace element oxides of commonly ingested soils (geophagic soil) collected from different countries with a view of understanding how varied they may be in these properties and to understand the possible health implications of ingesting them. Soil samples were collected from three differen...

The bacterial endophytic communities residing within roots of maize (Zea mays L.) plants cultivated by a sustainable management in soils from the Quechua maize belt (Peruvian Andes) were examined using tags pyrosequencing spanning the V4 and V5 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA. Across four replicate libraries, two corresponding to sequences of endophytic bacteria from long time maize-culti...

counties (Torrent et al., 1980), and in soils formed in late The morphologic development of soils on marine terraces is a function of terrace age and geomorphic evolution. In this study, inter­ relationships between terrace landscape evolution and pedogenic sil­ ica cementation were investigated. Soil morphology, micromorphol­ ogy, selective dissolution, penetration resistance, and hydraulic co...

Metals in bed-load sediments are multi-source, namely: weathered rocks, metals discharged directly into river, and eroded riparian soils. Contaminated flood plains represent storage system for releasing pollutants to rivers. An essential first step towards modeling this storage is to investigate the relationship. The objective of this study is compare the composition (CaCO3, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn,...

The process of P release and transfer becomes more complex in environments strongly disturbed by human activities. In this paper, purple soils (about 37.8% of total soils) from areas with different sea level elevations and land use were sampled in the Water Fluctuation Zone (WFZ) in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) along the Yangzi River. This research investigated the P distribution characteri...