The amendment of soil with biochar has been demonstrated to have an effect not only on the soil physicochemical properties, but also on soil microbial community composition and activity. Previous reports have demonstrated significant impacts on soil microbial community structure. These impacts are modulated not only by the biochar composition, but also on the soil’s physicochemical characterist...

Field experiments are described involving nitrogen fertilizer in wheat field to research its effect on microbial quantity and enzyme activity. The results showed that 250 kg N hm applied in wheat field (1) can increase bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes quantity by 39.9%, 56.7% and 70.5% compare to 0 kg N hm. (2) Similarly, the activities of soil urease, catalase and FDA expressed 60.8%, 18.3% and ...

In soils, a multitude of inorganic, organic, and biological constituents build up extremely large, heterogeneous, and hierarchically organized biogeochemical interfaces (BGIs). These interfaces affect a variety of soil processes, such as the formation and the stability of soil aggregates; the movement and the spatial distribution of solutes, colloids, and gases; or the bioavailability of inorga...

The eco-toxicological indicators used to evaluate soil quality complement the physico-chemical criteria employed in contaminated site remediation, but their cost, time, sophisticated analytical methods and in-situ inapplicability pose a major challenge to rapidly detect and map the extent of soil contamination. This paper describes a sensor-based approach for measuring potential (substrate-indu...

As a source of ‘suspended soils’, epiphytes contribute large amounts of organic matter to the canopy of tropical rain forests. Microbes associated with epiphytes are responsible for much of the nutrient cycling taking place in rain forest canopies. However, soils suspended far above the ground in living organisms differ from soil on the forest floor, and traditional predictors of soil microbial...

Agricultural practices have proven to be unsuitable in many cases, causing considerable reductions in soil quality. Land management practices can provide solutions to this problem and contribute to get a sustainable agriculture model. The main objective of this work was to assess the effect of different agricultural management practices on soil microbial community structure (evaluated as abunda...

abstract biological and chemical changes in rhizosphere following organic residues as well as manures application are important processes which influence nitrogen mineralization and nutrients bioavailibity in soils. this study was done to evaluation of organic residues effect on growth, nitrogen supply and rhizosphere characteristics of corn and sunflower plants in greenhouse experiment using s...

Long-term carbon (C) cycle feedbacks to climate depend on the future dynamics of soil organic carbon (SOC). Current models show low predictive accuracy at simulating contemporary SOC pools, which can be improved through parameter estimation. However, major uncertainty remains in global soil responses to climate change, particularly uncertainty in how the activity of soil microbial communities w...

Petroleum contamination of soil is a serious problem throughout the oil producer countries. Vegetation may play an important role in the biodegradation of toxic organic chemicals in soil. For petroleum compounds, the presence of rhizosphere micro flora may accelerate biodegradation of the contaminants. In a greenhouse study, petroleum contaminated soil were treated using phytoremediation . ...