Introduced species dominate the terrestrial isopod fauna in most inland habitats of North America, including urban landscapes. These non-native species are often very abundant and thus potentially play a significant role in detritus processing. We monitored isopod assemblages in an urban forest for a year to examine the relationship between surface activity and abiotic environmental factors, an...

Urban and peri-urban agriculture is becoming increasingly important as a source of income and food for the urban population in South Africa. This study was prompted by concerns of city authorities that soil compaction in horticultural fields that used conventional tillage practices with tractors was, not only limiting the performance of fruit and vegetable crops, but also affecting the quality ...

Understanding urban soil geochemistry is a challenging task because of the complicated layering of the urban landscape and the profound impact of large cities on the chemical dispersion of harmful trace elements. A systematic geochemical soil survey was performed across Greater Athens and Piraeus, Greece. Surface soil samples (0-10cm) were collected from 238 sampling sites on a regular 1×1km gr...

Precipitation is a well known phenomenon. If the pH of it is less than 5.6 precipitations are considered as acidic else it is alkaline. Basically soil is alkaline in nature. Recently man’s activities have increased emissions of oxides of nitrogen and sulphur results in increase in acidity of atmosphere. When these gases react with different elements in the atmosphere the acids are re-introduced...

Assessment of heavy metal concentrations in the soil samples of urban parks and playgrounds is very important for the evaluation of potential risks for residents, especially children. Until recently, there has been very little data about urban parks pollution in Montenegro. To evaluate the sources of potential contamination and concentration of heavy metals, soil samples from coastal urban park...

chlorotica Aporrectodea rosea X-ray tomography Burrow networks Microcosms Earthworms are considered as key actors of soil processes at different spatial and temporal scales and provide essential ecosystem services linked to climate regulation or primary production. However, little is known about their basic functional roles (e.g. organic matter decomposition, soil structuring processes) in pert...

Understanding land use land cover change (LULCC) is a prerequisite for urban planning and environment management. For LULCC studies in urban/suburban environments, the abundance and spatial distributions of bare soil are essential due to its biophysically different properties when compared to anthropologic materials. Soil, however, is very difficult to be identified using remote sensing technol...

Wetlands in older urban areas have often been integrated into stormwater management systems and exhibit severe degradation from receiving decades of untreated and uncontrolled urban runoff. Vegetative diversity is often poor and dominated by a few hardy species such as cattail (Typha latifolia) or reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea). These wetlands may also be affected by legacy impacts fr...

Urban soil pollution has become a major concern in megacities around the world. Due to their non-degradable characteristic, toxic metals are among the most notorious pollutants. In this study determination of total and bioavailable fraction of toxic metals Ni, Cu, Cr, Zn, Co, Cd, Pb and Mn, in surface soils of district 16th in Tehran municipality is considered. Furthermore, metals uptake potent...

Ecologists increasingly use plot-scale data to inform research and policy related to regional and global environmental change. For soil chemistry research, scaling from the plot to the region is especially difficult due to high spatial variability at all scales. We used a hierarchical Bayesian model of plot-scale soil nutrient pools to predict storage of soil organic carbon (oC), inorganic carb...