During the summer months, wet (hyporheic) soils associated with ephemeral streams and lake edges in the Antarctic Dry Valleys (DVs) become hotspots of biological activity and are hypothesized to be an important source of carbon and nitrogen for arid DV soils. Recent research in the DV has focused on the geochemistry and microbial ecology of lakes and arid soils, with substantially less informat...

Carbon-fixation is a critical process in severely oligotrophic Antarctic Dry Valley (DV) soils and may represent the major source of carbon in these arid environments. However, rates of C-fixation in DVs are currently unknown and the microorganisms responsible for these activities unidentified. In this study, C-fixation rates measured in the bulk arid soils (<5% moisture) ranged from below dete...

Concentrations of copper (Cu), lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), and arsenic (As) were measured in arid agricultural and irrigated agricultural soils collected in Daba Village, Shajiawuan Village, Gangou Village and Sifangwu Village, located in central Gansu Province, China. Concentrations except Hg and Pb were lower than the background values in grey calcareous soil in the selected arid ...

Substantial tracts of land in the southwestern and western U.S. are undergoing or will require ERA. Toxicity bioassays employed in baseline ERAs are, for the most part. representative of mesic systems, and highly standardized test species (e.g., lettuce, earthworm) are generally not relevant to arid system toxicity testing. Conversely, relevant test species are often poorly characterized with r...

With little precipitation (<10 cm water equivalent annually as snow), soils of the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) have limited water available to support hydrological or biogeochemical processes. Active layer depths across most of this landscape are <1 m. Saturated sediments are obvious in wetted margins on the shorelines of lakes, extending for up to ~10 m into a zone where typically arid MDV soils...

Microbial communities in soils may change in accordance with distance, season, climate, soil texture and other environmental parameters. Microbial diversity patterns have been extensively surveyed in temperate regions, but few such studies attempted to address them with respect to spatial and temporal scales and their correlations to environmental factors, especially in arid ecosystems. In orde...

Understanding nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes from agricultural soils in semi-arid regions is required to better understand global terrestrial N2O losses. Nitrous oxide fluxes were measured from three rain-fed, cropped soils in a semi-arid region of south-western Australia on a sub-daily basis from 1995 to 2014 using automated chambers. Western Australia’s grain-belt includes 7 million hectares of a...

Excessive salt rate can adversely influence the physical, chemical, and biological properties of soils, mainly in arid and semi-arid world regions. Therefore, salt-affected soils must be reclaimed to maintain satisfactory fertility levels for increasing food production. Different approaches have been suggested to solve these issues. This short review focuses on selected studies that have identi...

1. Soil Formation is a Global Natural Process 2. Factors of Soil Formation 3. Stages of Soil Formation 4. Processes of Soil Formation 5. Genesis of Soils under Different Ecologic Conditions 5.1. Genesis of Soils under Conditions of Cryogenesis 5.2. Genesis of Soils of Forest Landscapes in a Zone of Moderate Climate 5.3. Genesis of Soils in Landscapes of Steppes and Prairies 5.4. Genesis of Soil...