Earthworms (Haplotaxida: Lumbricina) are bioindicators of soil fertility. Agricultural systems applied to an agricultural area can affect the presence earthworms there. This study aims determine density in plantations owned by PT. Cinquer Agro Nusantara with Agroforestry-Organic, Monoculture-Semiorganic, Polyculture-Organic, Monoculture-Organic, and farmer-owned Monoculture-Inorganic system. Th...

Pseudostellaria heterophylla is an important medicinal plant in China. However, cultivation of P. heterophylla using consecutive monoculture results in significant reductions in yield and quality. In this study, terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis and measurement of soil enzyme activities were used to investigate the regulation of soil micro-ecology to identify w...

It has become clear that plants can create soils that affect subsequent plant growth. However, because plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) are typically measured in monoculture experiments, it remains unclear to what extent PSFs affect plant growth in communities. Here we used data from a factorial PSF experiment to predict the biomass of 12 species grown in 162 plant community combinations. Five diffe...

Microbial syntrophic metabolism has been well accepted as the heart of how methanogenic and other anaerobic microbial communities function. In this work, we applied a single-cell RT-qPCR approach to reveal gene-expression heterogeneity in a model syntrophic system of Desulfovibrio vulgaris and Methanosarcina barkeri, as compared with the D. vulgaris monoculture. Using the optimized primers and ...

Nitrogen (N) fertilization can greatly improve plant productivity but needs to be carefully managed to avoid harmful environmental impacts. Nutrient management guidelines aimed at reducing harmful forms of N loss such as nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions and nitrate (NO3(-)) leaching have been tailored for many cropping systems. The developing bioenergy industry is likely to make use of novel cropp...

The abundance and population structure of pseudomonads in soils collected from long-(1006 years) and short-(54 years) term grapevine monocultures in Switzerland were examined across five soil horizons within the 1.20e1.35 m range. Soil samples were baited with grapevine, and rhizosphere pseudomonads containing the biocontrol genes phlD (2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol synthesis) and/or hcnAB (hydrog...

Campylobacter jejuni, one of the most common causes of human gastroenteritis, is a thermophilic and microaerophilic bacterium. These characteristics make it a fastidious organism, which limits its ability to survive outside animal hosts. Nevertheless, C. jejuni can be transmitted to both humans and animals via environmental pathways, especially through contaminated water. Biofilms may play a cr...

The diversity-disease hypothesis states that decreased genetic diversity in host populations increases the incidence of diseases caused by pathogens (= monoculture effect) and eventually influences ecosystem functioning. The monoculture effect is well-known from crop studies and may be partially specific to the artificial situation in agriculture. The effect received little attention in animal ...

In nature, plant biomass is not evenly distributed across species, and naturally uncommon species may differ from common species in the probability of loss from the community. Understanding relationships between evenness and productivity is therefore critical to understanding changes in ecosystem functioning as species are lost from communities. We examined data from a large multi-site grasslan...

BACKGROUND Extending the period of in-vitro culture to the blastocyst stage may improve implantation rates in IVF treatment. Recognition of the dynamic nature of early embryo metabolism has led to the development of commercially available sequential culture systems. However, their improved efficacy over monoculture systems remains to be demonstrated in prospective studies. METHODS Embryos obt...