Question: Are contemporary herb and tree patterns explained by historic land use practices? If so, are observed vegetation patterns associated with lifehistory characteristics, soil properties, or other environmental variables? Location: Southeastern Ohio, USA. Methods: Using archival records, currently forested sites were identified with distinct land use histories: cultivated, pasture (but no...

Since the implementation of market oriented economic reform in 1978, China has been on the track of rapid urbanization. The unprecedented urbanization in China has resulted in substantial cultivated land loss and rapid expansion of urban areas. The cultivated land loss due to urbanization not only threatens food security in China, but has also led to ecological system degradation to which close...

This study aimed to explore the ecological adaptability and the possibility of growing rice with floating bed on the dilute biogas slurry. The results of the experiments show that the growth stage, rice plant height, and rice yield and quality were significantly affected by multiple dilutions; rice plants cultivated with 45 multiple dilutions had better ecological adaptability than others. In t...

Determination of the relationships between soil and plant cover indispensible in the in planning and managementof the arid regions, the aim being to revitalize plant cover, conserve soil and to combat desertification. Among factorsaffecting plant cover, particularly in arid and semiarid areas are soil traits. During the present study, the effect ofHaloxylon aphyllum Cultivation on soil physioch...

The soil CO2 emission is recognized as one of the largest fluxes in the global carbon cycle. Small errors in its estimation can result in large uncertainties and have important consequences for climate model predictions. Monte Carlo approach is efficient for estimating and reducing spatial scale sampling errors. However, that has not been used in soil CO2 emission studies. Here, soil respiratio...

Journal of Environmental Hydrology Volume 19 Paper 14 May 2011 1 Restoration of large tracts of cropland to tallgrass prairie in north-central USA suggests that conversion will reduce runoff, infiltration, and groundwater recharge. In northwestern Minnesota, U.S.A., physically similar, adjacent native prairie (control) and cultivated sites were instrumented with time-domain reflectometry probes...

One of the main European agricultural problems is the decline in soil fertility due to the reduction of the natural soil harmony. When natural soil composition is altered, few cultivated plants replace spontaneous populations of numerous species. Man becomes the only regulator of a new fragile equilibrium between the simplified biocenosis elements. Agronomic techniques (fertilisation, irrigatio...

The diversity of bacterial isolates from soil in response to different plants (control, Brachiaria ruziziensis and Cajanus cajan), fertilization (control, simple superphosphate and rock phosphate) and liming (with and without lime) was evaluated. Phenotypic and physiological characteristics of the isolates were recorded and organized in a file to identify the bacteria. Among the isolates, 95% w...

Prosopis juliflora (Swartz) DC is one of the most economically and/or ecologically important legumes in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Prosopis was introduced into Sudan in early 20 century, and succeeded in controlling the expansion of desert in northern Sudan. Recently, however, this species distributes widely and rapidly in eastern Sudan, and induces many problems in human subsiste...