Climate change and associated environmental alterations affect plant communities, potentially decoupling links between plants their soil microbial communities. This may in turn processes like litter decomposition, an important function that controls nutrient carbon cycling as well many other ecosystem processes. Microbial decomposers have been proposed to specialize, being able easier decompose...

When improperly managed, land application of animal manures can harm the environment; however, limited watershed-scale runoff water quality data are available to research and address this issue. The water quality impacts of conversion to poultry litter fertilization on cultivated and pasture watersheds in the Texas Blackland Prairie were evaluated in this three-year study. Edge-of-field N and P...

T ropical forests play a substantial role in the global carbon (C) cycle and are projected to experience significant changes in climate, highlighting the im portance of understanding the factors th a t contro l organic m atte r decom position in this biome. In the tropics, high tem perature and rainfall lead to some o f the highest rates o f litter decom position on earth , and given the near-o...

Poultry litter applications to land have been based on crop N requirements, resulting in application of P in excess of plant requirements, which may cause degradation of water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The effect of litter source (the Delmarva Peninsula and Moorefield, West Virginia) and composting of poultry litter on N mineralization and availability of P in two soil types (san...

Factors that negatively affect the quality of wildlife habitat are a major concern for conservation. Non-native species invasions, in particular, are perceived as a global threat to the quality of wildlife habitat. Recent evidence indicates that some changes to understory plant communities in northern temperate forests of North America, including invasions by 3 non-native plant species, are fac...

Limitations in quality bedding material have resulted in the growing need to re-use litter during broiler farming in some countries, which can be of concern from a food-safety perspective. The aim of this study was to compare the Campylobacter levels in ceca and litter across three litter treatments under commercial farming conditions. The litter treatments were (a) the use of new litter after ...

Invasive plants are common and may provide resources through litter for container mosquito larvae. Invasive plant reproductive parts can make up a substantial part of litter but have mostly been ignored as a resource for mosquito larvae. We hypothesized that the reproductive fruits of the invasive eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana, provide high quality resources for the invasive, containe...

Invasive exotic plant species are often expected to benefit exclusively from legacy effects of their litter inputs on soil processes and nutrient availability. However, there are relatively few experimental tests determining how litter of exotic plants affects their own growth conditions compared to congeneric native plant species. Here, we test how the legacy of litter from three exotic plant ...