Non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are commonly found in the environment. As exposure to environmental mycobacteria has been reported to immunomodulatory in this study, the presence of environmental mycobacteria was investigated in soil, drinking water and drainage sample in Ghatampur, India, which is known for high endemicity for leprosy. Soil, drinking water from the hand pumps/wells and also...

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging disease causing unprecedented morbidity and mortality among bats in eastern North America. The disease is characterized by cutaneous infection of hibernating bats by the psychrophilic fungus Geomyces destructans. Detection of G. destructans in environments occupied by bats will be critical for WNS surveillance, management and characterization of the fung...

This study aimed to determine phosphorus (P) concentration using reflectance spectra of grass and soils in the Lake Okeechobee drainage basins, Florida. A total of 150 grass samples and 150 soil samples were collected from the three sites in the Lake Okeechobee drainage basins. The reflectance spectra of both fresh and dried samples for grass and soil were measured using UV, VIS, and NIR spectr...

plants change their environment characteristics and especially soil properties while their growth and adaptation, to develop plant communities. in this study effect of halophyte patches from urmia lack in a vegetation type of salsola nitraria and aeluropus littoralis on chemical and physical properties of soil was investigated. so 4 vegitation patches along 2 transect with the length of 150 met...

this study investigated biodegradation of dibenzothiophene (dbt) in marsh soil spiked bywhite-rot fungus phanerochaete chrysosporium. soil samples were spiked with 100 ppm dbtand incubated at 30°c in a dark chamber for 30 days. samples were evaluated for ph, mnperoxidaseactivity, sulfate ion concentration and growth during the tests. results showedmaximum levels of ph, mn-peroxidase and sulfate...

soil moisture retention curve (smrc) is an important soil property which expresses reaction between matric potential and moisture of soil. direct measurement of soil matric potential and moisture is labour- and time-consuming. in order to prevail this problem, indirect methods are used for smrc prediction. pedotransfer functions (ptfs) are one of these indirect methods. this study was carried o...

Food-borne pathogen persistence in soil fundamentally affects the production of safe vegetables and small fruits. Interventions that reduce pathogen survival in soil would have positive impacts on food safety by minimizing preharvest contamination entering the food chain. Laboratory-controlled studies determined the effects of soil pH, moisture content, and soil organic matter (SOM) on the surv...

The concentration and distribution of Pb, Zn, Cu and Cr in the surface soil of three grassed swales located in the city of Beijing, Jiaxing and Shenzhen were studied in this paper. Evaluations on the risk of heavy metals were conducted based on the second level limit of soil environmental quality standard, using different indexes (i.e., single item, comprehensive items and potential ecological ...

Termites constitute part of diverse and economically important termite fauna in Africa, but information on gut microbiota and their associated soil microbiome is still inadequate. In this study, we assessed and compared the bacterial diversity and community structure between termites' gut, their mounds and surrounding soil using the 454 pyrosequencing-based analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences. ...

RATIONALE It was recently shown that the presence of CO2 affects the stable isotope (δ2 H and δ18 O values) analysis of water vapor via Wavelength-Scanned Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy. Here, we test how much CO2 is emitted from soil samples and if the CO2 in the headspace influences the isotope analysis with the direct equilibration method by Off-Axis Integrated Cavity Output Spectroscopy (OA-...