Soils provide plants with a medium in which roots can anchor themselves and support their canopies, and from which they can tap reserves of water and nutrients. To supply adequate space, water and nutrients, a good soil should be deep, permeable, porous, with good water and nutrient retention capacity and rich in a balanced amount of minerals and organic compounds. Most soils do not have these ...

[1] In dryland ecosystems, understanding the effects of heterogeneity in soil moisture and geophysical properties on vegetation structure and dynamics poses a suite of challenging research questions. Heterogeneity in soil depth can affect resource availability and the subsequent organization of woody vegetation, while spatiotemporal variation in soil moisture can reveal important ecohydrologica...

Precipitation, throughfall, forest floor, and soil leachate samples were monitored continuously in 1981 and 1982 in aN-poor Douglasfir (Pseudotsuga men:.iesii (Mirb.) Franco) forest and a red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.) forest growing adjacently on a glacial soil in western Washington. The purpose of the study was to quantify the relative importance of atmospheric vs. natural sources of H + input...

The spatial organisation of soils is crucially important in affecting belowground function, and the associated delivery of ecosystem services. Fungi constitute an important part of the soil biomass. As well as playing key roles in nutrient cycling and biotic interactions, they are also intimately involved in soil structural dynamics. Fungi mediate the formation of soil structure at a variety of...

To evaluate the effects of long-term applications of phosphorus fertilizers on mobility of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and heavy metals in agricultural soils, a sandy soil and a loamy soil were spiked with ammonium phosphate at application rates of 0, 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 mg P per kilogram of soil. A series of 15-cm long soil columns were constructed by packing incubated soils of varyin...

Collembolans play an important role in the formation of microstructure and maintaining the agricultural ecosystem which is enriched by plant litter decomposition. Collembolans are also host of many parasitic Protozoans, Nematodes and pathogenic bacteria. Soil organisms are subjected to a variety of edaphic factors in the soil such as soil moisture, temperature, pH, amount of organic carbon and ...

The fate of organic herbicides applied to agricultural fields may be affected by other soil amendments, such as copper applied as a fungicide. The effect of copper on the leaching of diuron and glyphosate through a granitic and a calcareous soil was studied in the laboratory using sieved-soil columns. Each soil was enriched with copper sulfate to obtain soil copper concentrations of 125, 250, 5...

In the paper some results on the effects of chemo-physical evolution of clay-lime-water suspensions on the microstructure of a lime treated kaolin have been presented. A multi-scale investigation on the sedimentation behaviour of clay suspensions under different pore water chemistry has been developed highlighting the chemophysical mechanisms controlling particle arrangement and the soil fabric...

Observation of a chemically resistant organic residue from maize crop soils by transmission electron microscopy reveals the occurrence of thin laminae with 10-50 nm thickness, similar to resistant, highly aliphatic biopolymers found in kerogens and microbes. This discovery shows evidence for a novel and alternative mode of formation of soil organic matter by selective preservation of resistant ...