Present study assessed the effect of heavy metals on soil enzyme activities like amylase, invertase, dehydrogenase and urease of open shrub lands present at 1 km, 1.5 km, 2 km and 2.5 km distance away from Bhushan sponge iron industry, in Rengali block of Sambalpur district, Odisha. The heavy metals studied were Cd, Ni, and Cr, whose concentrations in the above sites were much more than the saf...

Linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) can be found in high concentrations in sewage sludge and, hence, may enter the soil compartment as a result of sludge application. Here, LAS may pose a risk for soil-dwelling organisms. In the present probabilistic risk assessment, statistical extrapolation has been used to assess the risk of LAS to soil ecosystems. By use of a log-normal distribution model,...

Antibiotics may enter the terrestrial environment when amending soils with manure. A Note of Guidance on ecological risk assessment of veterinary medicines was issued in January 1998. Hardly any information about ecotoxicological effects of already existing substances are available. This study has tested the effects of two widely used antibiotics, tylosin and oxytetracycline, on three species o...

Soil invertebrate fauna plays a major role in several environmental processes, and its absence can negatively impact ecosystem health. This study aimed to assess the recovery of epigeal edaphic faunal communities following an disaster, with landslides, mudflow, river floods, sites under different management systems, effects cover crops on fauna, their relationship soil physical chemical propert...

Experimental manipulations of soil fauna are a powerful tool for assessing causal relationships between belowground biodiversity and key ecosystem properties. However, preparing soil microcosm treatments without soil fauna for ecological experiments can be problematic. Methods to exclude nematodes, a ubiquitous and functionally important component of terrestrial ecosystems, have been developed ...

1. Studies of stable isotope signatures can reveal and quantify trophic carbon transfer between organisms. However, preservation of the samples before analysis cannot always be avoided. Some preservation agents are known to alter tissue δ 13 C values considerably, but we do not yet understand how variation in such preservation artifacts may be determined by variation in body traits of different...

Critical transition zones, such as aquatic–terrestrial interfaces, have been recognized as important features in landscape ecology. Yet changes in the community structure of soil and sediment biota across aquatic–terrestrial boundaries remain relatively unstudied. We investigated the community structure of the dominant fauna, namely nematodes, rotifers and tardigrades, across lake sediment–soil...

Climate change predictions for the Great Plains region of North America include reduced growing season precipitation. The consequence of this prediction for soil fauna and belowground processes was investigated at two spatial scales by integrating experimental manipulation of soil moisture levels with natural variation in soil-water availability. Experiments consisted of (1) reciprocal core tra...