The present study aimed to elucidate the ecological role of cyanobacteria-dominated crusts on soil enzyme activities along a precipitation gradient. Results showed that protein and polysaccharide contents of cyanobacterial-dominated crusts changed significantly among nine sample sites. Meanwhile, protein and polysaccharide displayed downward trend with increasing thickness and decreased with increasing

Global studies, generally, and Brazilian studies, specifically, on soil organic carbon (SOC) in experimental research plots, support conservation agriculture (CA) as a tool to partially or totally restore SOC stocks depleted by conventional tillage agriculture. In response, the Brazilian Government implemented in 2010–2030 a “Low Carbon Agriculture Plan” (ABC Plan) program centered on large-scale CA

Soil aggregate stability and C stock are the key factors in greenhouse vegetable production, which were influenced by the application of different organic materials. However, the responses of soil aggregate stability and C stock to organic amendment in greenhouse vegetable fields are not well understood. A 5-year study was carried out in greenhouse vegetable fields to investigate the effect of partial

Natural wetlands along the coasts of the Yellow and Bohai seas provide key stopover sites for migratory waterbirds. However, these wetlands are facing land loss. Understanding how natural wetland loss influences habitat is important for habitat management. We used species distribution models to report changes in area of suitable habitat and analyzed the effects of natural wetland loss on habitat for

Alpine peatlands on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are an important soil carbon pool and are extremely sensitive to global change. Duration of drainage and water table drawdown accelerate peatland degradation because the soil changes from an anaerobic to aerobic environment, and climate warming exacerbates this shift. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effects of drainage on microbial

Soil erosion is a major environmental threat. The purpose of this study was to develop new polymer soil improvers that could mitigate the risk of soil erosion by modifying the microstructure of the soil and improving the ecological self-repair ability. In particular, this study investigated new polymer composites (ADNB) based on different combination ratios of nano-aqueous adhesive (NAB) and superabsorbent

Coastal mudflats reclamation activities show a strong influence on soil properties, microbial community, and activity, which drive soil carbon and nitrogen cycling. Studies had found the shift of bacterial community with reclamation time. However, effects of reclamation time on soil archaeal community are still largely unknown. Here, we determined soil properties and archaeal community in the soil

This study examines the spatial relationship between land cover change and its drivers at varying scale in Mt. Guna. The recent land cover map was generated from Google Earth Image (2018), and the historical land cover map generated from the 1957 and 1980 aerial photos. Multi-scale Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) were used to model the spatial relationship between

The significant increase in vegetation coverage in northern China over the past two decades has attracted worldwide attention. Revegetation has been completed via artificial and natural restoration techniques, and the relative performance of each needs to be further explored. Although some studies have focused on the comparison between artificial and natural methods in vegetation restoration from a

Aggregate stability and soil organic carbon (SOC) are critical for maintaining soil structure and preserving soil productivity. Land use substantially affects the process of soil aggregate stabilization and SOC sequestration, yet the detailed mechanisms have not been well studied in degraded soil ecosystems (e.g. saline sodic soils). Therefore, to interpret the effects of land-use changes on soil aggregate

Previous studies in northeastern Patagonia suggested that, mainly as a consequence of overgrazing by sheep, the herbaceous steppes are being replaced by shrub steppes dominated by Chuquiraga avellanedae as a consequence of shrub encroachment. The herbaceous steppe presents a thick sandy loam to loamy sand A-horizon lying on a clay-horizon while the shrub steppe presents the clay-horizon at or near

In recent years, improved paddy crop varieties, advanced tools and technologies have resulted in a huge quantity of crop residues (CRs) production. Hence, appropriate sustainable management of the paddy CRs produced annually is needed. In this study, a field experiment was conducted to evaluate the impact of rice husk biochar (RHB) amendments on soil physico-chemical characteristics, methanotrophs

Field-based investigations of land use/cover changes are time-consuming and challenging for large areas, where short- and long-term changes in climatic and hydrologic variables affect ecosystem services. Thus, there is a substantial demand to boost the new modelling framework and employ remote sensing capabilities to quantify hydro-climatic impacts on land dynamics. In this study, a conceptual framework

The cover management factor (C-factor) has become one of the most sensitive and complex parameters in the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) because of its sensitivity to anthropogenic activities. However, due to the regionally limited scope of conventional models, direct applications of the C-factor prediction have been hindered in China. Alternative C-factor estimation approaches often

We investigated the soil physicochemical property and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) resilience to the degradation and deforestation of a dry evergreen Afromontane forest, the Chilimo Forest (CF). Topsoil (1-10 cm) physicochemical property, AMF spore abundance (SA), and AMF infectivity were determined across four land uses, viz., natural forest (NF), shrubland (ShL), cropland (CrL), and grazing

Grazing exclusion is a common management strategy for improving grasslands degraded due to overgrazing. Although previous meta-analyses proved that grazing exclusion improved soil carbon (C) storage of grasslands in China, we know little about its effect on grassland ecosystems elsewhere and whether litter accumulation induced by grazing exclusion regulates soil C storage. Using meta-analysis, we integrated

Soil contamination with trace elements in mining areas still remains an urgent research problem due to their negative environmental impact that needs to be assessed. Despite the wide application of the electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) method to different environmental problems, it continually remains methodologically challenging in soil contamination near waste dumps of post-metal historical

Soil salinity has become a highly disastrous phenomenon responsible for crop failure worldwide, especially in countries with low farmer incomes and food insecurity. Soil salinity is often due to water accumulation in fields caused by improper flood irrigation whereby plants take up the water leaving salts behind. It is, however, the subsurface soil salinity that affects plant growth. This soil salinity

Treating soils with pyrolyzed biomass, that is biochar, is proposed as a conditioner and a carbon geoengineering measure. Rice is known as a strategic crop and rice husk is a cheap and available feedstock material for biochar in particular in Asia. We conducted a field experiment with laboratory biochar (LB) and locally produced [in-situ biochar (IB)] applied at rates of 10 and 20 t ha−1 using a randomized

Land reclamation has occurred extensively worldwide to accommodate urbanization and economic development, especially in developing countries like China. However, we have a limited understanding of the long-term dynamics and key drivers of land use/cover change in the reclaimed area. In this study, we monitored the detailed spatiotemporal evolution of land reclamation from 1973 to 2018 in Qiantang New

Shifting cultivation is widely practiced in the northeastern hill (NEH) region of India. It is known that the destruction of natural forests and its conversion to cropland leads to soil resource degradation. The impacts on soil due to jhuming (jhum practice followed in shifting cultivation) have not been studied adequately. Also, study of alternatives to jhum land use is lacking. In our study, a soil

Rural communities in the drylands of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) derive their livelihoods primarily from their natural resource base. Unprecedented changes in these environments over the past few decades are likely to intensify in the future and land users need to develop sustainable adaptation strategies. This study aims to identify land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes and their drivers in a sub-Saharan

Bamboo-chicken farming (BCF) is a popular bamboo complex management model in Southeast Asia. However, the effects of BCF on phosphorus (P) availability and associated soil microbial communities remain poorly understood. In this study, we compared the soil properties, P fractions, phosphatase activities, and bacterial community compositions in the surface soil (0–20 cm) of a typical BCF system under

The identification of the degree of linkage between sediment source and sink areas and also the channel network allows for prioritizing areas for sediment control measures at the watershed scale. The present study was therefore planned to investigate sediment connectivity based on structural and functional aspects. To that end, the index of connectivity (IC) and sediment delivery ratio (SDR), respectively

Desertification is one of the primary environmental problems that negatively affect agricultural production leading to poverty, hunger, and economic instability in a country like India. A holistic study is therefore extremely valuable rather than localized ones for addressing this issue and its' further consequences. In this study, the environmentally sensitive area index (ESAI) has been used to identify

Soil properties and plants influence soil microbial community diversity, and their role in nutrient cycling could influence plant productivity; however, it is not clear the relationships between soil bacterial communities, soil moisture, and nitrogen (N) content, and whether these associations influence plant productivity. In this study, we investigated how the soil microbial community affects root

Tillage erosion causes substantial soil redistribution that can exceed water erosion especially in hummocky landscapes under highly mechanized large field agriculture. Consequently, truncated soil profiles can be found on hill shoulders and top slopes, whereas colluvial material is accumulated at footslopes, in depressions, and along downslope field borders. We tested the hypothesis that soil erosion

Predicting future land cover (LC) changes is an important step in the proper planning and management of watersheds. As a susceptible area to salinity and desertification, receiving only about 195 mm rainfall annually, the Hable-Rud River basin is especially sensitive to land use/cover changes. Based on corrected LANDSAT satellite images for the years 1986, 2000, and 2017, the LC were extracted using

Identification of key soil properties is an essential prerequisite to delineating the management zone (MZ), which is traditionally done by selecting soil parameters before crop planting. However, soil properties during sensitive stages of crop growth may have a greater effect on the MZ delineation than those before planting. This study is aimed to determine whether inclusion of soil properties measured

Tropical forest disturbance contributes to global climate change from increased carbon emissions, and causes loss of biodiversity. Thus, identifying its direct causes and underlying drivers are necessary for effective land use, climate change control and conservation strategies. We integrated remote sensing forest cover data from 2000 to 2018 with georeferenced national socioeconomic and field-collected

Understanding community restoration state and assembly mechanisms is helpful to assess restoration measures and predict community dynamics. In order to explore the effects of fencing duration and shrub cover on community stability and assembly, we investigated the community information and assessed the assembly mechanisms in plots using shrub cover of Caragana microphylla within each of the three sites

The arable-pastoral ecotone in northern China is ecologically fragile and the region has experienced substantial climatic variability, triggering population migrations, and the alternation of subsistence strategies during the historical period. However, the lack of continuous proxy records of arable and grazing activity has hampered our understanding of shifts in subsistence strategies and their relationship

The zaï cropping system that involves precision manure placement in small excavated soil pits is designed to restore the productivity of encrusted and degraded soils of the Sahel. However, there is little information on the effectiveness of zaï cropping to improve soil quality, particularly as to how it relates to manure sources. Therefore, our objective was to determine the effect of manure type on

For reducing soil carbon (C) depletion and increasing its stocks in soil through sequestration, it is necessary to develop identification, standardization, and adoption of some effective nutrient management practices, especially related to nitrogen management. In this study, various modes of N input were tried and the best mode (MRPU-2S, i.e., mid-rib placement upper to corms in two splits) that restricted

Shrubs are one of the most dominant plant types in semiarid ecosystems all over the world. What remains to be investigated is how soil and vegetation characteristics vary under canopy of different species of shrubs in these regions. Thus, this study aimed to compare the effect of three shrub species (Amygdalus scoparia, Ebenus stellata, and Daphne mezereum) on soil and vegetation characteristics under

Plant litter is most important in mediating soil functioning during ecosystem recovery. In sandy ecosystems, the formation of a plant litter crust plays a crucial role in the process of restoration. This research explored the influence of the plant litter crust on sandy soil properties and the bacterial community, and the effect of the bacterial taxa on soil functions through driving sandy soil nutrients

Geochemical mapping is frequently used to identify the regions of the Planet with critical chemical elements and their natural or anthropogenic sources. In order to understand elements' geochemistry and to identify the area's potentially harmful associations, high-resolution maps of chemical elements, physico-chemical parameters, a noncarcinogenic hazard index, and a potential ecological risk index

The ecological restoration of mine dumps is challenging because of the loose soil structure, toxic heavy metal, and severe soil erosion at such sites. The impacts of native grass and polyacrylamide (PAM) on the soil sediment concentration, hydraulic properties, and heavy metals at mine dumps were investigated via scouring tests with a flow discharge of 90 L min−1. In the initial stages of the tests

Vegetation is a key to improve and protect new tropical coral island terrestrial ecosystem. Because of their superior ability in adapting poor soil structure and fertility, conserving soil and water and improving the living environment, warm-season turfgrass are considered as important pioneer plants and frequently applied in vegetation construction on tropical coral islands. However, few studies had

We use recent plot-level panel data from Tanzanian smallholder farmers to investigate maize yield responses to inorganic fertilizer under variable soil carbon conditions. Unlike many prior studies which consider total carbon measurements, we focus on active soil carbon, which is a component strongly related to key soil functions, such as nutrient cycling and availability. Active soil carbon is found

Despite the importance of understory vegetation for ecosystem processes and functions, its contribution to the dynamics of phosphorus (P) fractions in decomposing litter has rarely been studied in subtropical plantations. Herein, by conducting an understory removal (UR) experiment in a moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) plantation of South China, we assessed the effect of understory species on leaf

Though one of the most vulnerable terrestrial ecosystems, wetlands provide multiple ecosystem services, most notably storing carbon. It is now widely recognized that climate change could have a large impact on high-latitude wetlands. A key question is how climate change will affect the distribution pattern of wetland plant communities, and to what extent the transitions among different wetland plant

Changing hydrological processes and soil characteristics are of major environmental concern in surface mining. Runoff may be the best factor for determining the efficiency of rehabilitation after this type of mining, and needs more in-depth studies, but the environmental factors require more attention in order to control that runoff. The objective of this study was to compare the runoff during post-mining

Road verges represent new habitats providing an opportunity for enhancing biodiversity in human-altered landscapes. However, it is common practice to plant trees or sow species-poor seed mixtures regardless of their geographical origin. We assessed the effectiveness of spontaneous restoration to fulfil the requirements for both functions, the formation of vegetation cover to prevent erosion and native

We assessed the improvement potential of pressmud – a sugar industry waste – on soil properties, physiological adaptation and yield-related traits in a rice–wheat rotation in sodicity-affected Ghaghar basin of Haryana, India. Large-scale (0.2–0.4 ha) participatory trials comprising two treatments, with (+PM) and without (–PM) pressmud, were conducted on 125 farmers' fields covering non-sodic (NS),

Influenced by human activities, the largest freshwater lake in China, Poyang Lake is suffering from landscape degradation and increased ecological risks. However, the specific landscape ecological risk in Poyang Lake region remains unknown. The impact of land use change on landscape pattern and ecological risk around Poyang Lake has not been revealed. In order to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution

Periphyton plays an indispensable role in coastal saline-alkali land, but its function is poorly understood. Soil physical and chemical properties (pH value, salinity, soil organic matter), enzyme activity, and microbial diversity (based on 16 s rDNA, ITS and functional genes) were measured in periphyton formed on rice-growing coastal saline-alkali soil modified by a new type of soil conditioner. The

Mapping and monitoring of the complex process of desertification based on ground data in broad arid and semiarid areas faces basic limitations. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to propose a new method for mapping this phenomenon in central Iran using biological and nonbiological (BNB) indices of remote sensing products from 2003 to 2016. For this purpose, BNB indices including normalized

The osmotic pressure of a soil solution increases due to soil salinization and the stability and sustainability of the soil becomes poor, which will affect the movement of water in soil. In this study, the evaporation capacity and desiccation cracking characteristics of soda soil samples with different content (5, 10, 15, 20, and 25% by weight) of fly ash were investigated. After drying, the unconsumed

The effects of an intercropping system combined with organic fertilizer application on the yield quality of medicinal plants and the involved mechanisms have not been well elucidated. To evaluate the effects of different fertilizers (vermicompost and chemical fertilizers) on the dragonhead essential oil (DEO) productivity (dragonhead = Dracocephalum moldavica L.) (D) in sole cropping and intercropping

Soil microbial biomass is a key soil driver in the management of ecosystem functioning. However, little is known about the spatial distribution of microbial biomass in frequently disturbed areas, such as agro-pastoral ecotones. In this study, we sampled soil from natural grasslands across 56 sites in the agro-pastoral ecotone of northern China at 0–10 and 10–20 cm soil depth. We measured microbial

Over the 20th century, the Eurasian steppes underwent drastic land‐cover changes. Much progress was made studying cropland expansion and the post‐1990 (i.e., post‐Soviet) agricultural land abandonment in Eurasia. However, the alteration of steppe landscapes may include other disturbances, such as oil and gas development, formal and informal roads and garbage dumps, which were not systematically documented

Benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) as a representative polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is world‐widely concerned and broadly studied in various fields. However, biological and biochemical actions of B[a]P in soil‐wheat systems are still rarely reported. In view of the fact that the contents of B[a]P as a ubiquitous soil pollutant in the real environment varied greatly, herein was studied at a lab scale

Organic amendments are powerful tools for mitigating land degradation, improving soil fertility and biodiversity. Nevertheless, changes in the diversity and activity of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi during the initial period of soil restoration under different organic amendments (e.g., crop residues and livestock manure) remains poorly understood despite their growing roles in improving soil sustainability

Soil degradation restricts the development of agriculture, and the degree of soil degradation is related to land use type, and efficient evaluation methods are helpful for the timely implementation of remedial measures to ensure soil sustainability. Earthworms are directly affected by the deterioration of soil properties during the degradation process. The feasibility of using earthworms to assess

Soil amendments can be used to improve phytoremediation of polluted soils. Little is known about the effects of single or combined amendment addition on the bacterial community. Two carbon‐based amendments, a biochar and an activated carbon, and two redmuds were applied to a lead and arsenic contaminated mine spoil Technosol, alone or in combinations. The bacterial community was evaluated using enzyme

Soil erosion is threatening crop production in the black soil region (BSR) of China. This study aims to: (i) evaluate soil erosion hazard for all sloping croplands in BSR; (ii) identify optimum soil conservation practices and propose a schedule for soil conservation. High‐quality spatial data were collected and converted to a map with 30‐m resolution for analysis, including consideration of climate

Rapid urbanization leads to fragmentation of landscape and destruction of the ecological security network. A sound ecological security network promotes connectivity between ecological sources and mitigates the degradation of an ecological system. However, when identifying the ecological sources of the ecological network, studies available in the current literature did not simultaneously consider the

Today, with the gradual expansion of city centres, mining sites neighbouring cities have become high‐potential landscapes on which user needs and urban ecological necessities can be satisfied. However, as works on such fields remain at the upper scale and planning level, subscale design efforts required to give the areas in question an identity and usage opportunities are quite limited. Within this