The relative roles of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) and saprotrophic communities in controlling the decomposition of soil organic matter remain unclear. We tested the hypothesis that ECM community structure and activity influences the breakdown of nutrient-rich biopolymers in soils, while saprotrophic communities primarily regulate the breakdown of carbon-rich biopolymers. To test this hypothesis, we u...

A frequency domain dynamic analysis is needed to obtain the response of structures constructed on a system of base isolators on flexible soil when subjected to earthquake ground motion. In such systems, the lateral stiffness of the base isolators is so small, compared to the structural stiffness, that in an earthquake attack the fundamental vibration mode dominates the response. With this in mi...

In this study, the effective parameters on the inelastic response of asymmetric buildings is evaluated for an ensemble of real Iranian earthquake records by considering soil-structure interaction. Then, the design eccentricity obtained from the inelastic dynamic soil-structure analysis is compared with the design eccentricity of seisimic codes of Iran, ATC-3, New Zeland, Canada, Mexico, Austral...

Several studies have shown that soil microorganisms play a key role in the success of plant invasion. Thus, ecologists have become increasingly interested in understanding the ecological effects of biological invasion on soil microbial communities given continuing increase in the effects of invasive plants on native ecosystems. This paper aims to provide a relatively complete depiction of the c...

Microbes are widely distributed in soils and play a very important role in nutrient cycling and ecosystem services. To understand the biogeographic distribution of forest soil bacteria, we collected 115 soil samples in typical forest ecosystems across eastern China to investigate their bacterial community compositions using Illumina MiSeq high throughput sequencing based on 16S rRNA. We obtaine...

The main purpose of the present work is to investigate the impact of soil-structure interaction on performance-based design optimization of steel moment resisting frame (MRF) structures. To this end, the seismic performance of optimally designed MRFs with rigid supports is compared with that of the optimal designs with a flexible base in the context of performance-based design. Two efficient me...

This paper reports the results of an experimental study conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and capability of magneto-rheological (MR) dampers commanded by a decentralized control algorithm for seismic control of nonlinear civil structures considering soil-structure interaction (SSI). A two-story reinforced concrete (RC) frame resting in a laminar soil container is employed as the test spe...