Recent  

We present a new method to estimate the relative abundance of the dominant phyla and diversity of fungi in Australian soil. It uses state-of-the-art machine learning with publicly available data on soil and environmental proxies for edaphic, climatic, biotic and topographic factors, and visible–near infrared wavelengths. The estimates could serve to supplement the more expensive molecular approaches towards a better understanding of soil fungal abundance and diversity in agronomy and ecology.

Maps of soil properties made by machine-learning techniques are increasingly applied in earth surface process modelling and agronomy. Maps of the same area made by different methods appear quite different, and also differ from field-based polygon soil survey maps. We explore these differences both visually and numerically, using methods that quantify the spatial patterns. Readers can apply the methods to their areas of interest in the USA with supplied R Markdown scripts.

We have started to address this issue because the application of wetting agents is very widespread within the European Union and is often considered desirable because it increases the effectiveness of pesticides. While pesticides are thoroughly tested for their impact on the environment as a whole, testing for the effects of wetting agents is minimal. Today, there is no research on their impact on the soil environment.

The adverse effect of microplastic (MP) on soil biota and soil structure depend on MP particle size and surface characteristics. Since weathering plays a major role in the genesis of these, it must be considered in both the analysis of environmental MP and the production of artificial MP for laboratory experiments. This work integrates recent findings on adverse effects, the genesis of its surface characteristics and discusses how to reproduce them to receive close-to-nature designer MP.

In this manuscript, we describe changes in desert biocrust bacterial community during drought, rainfall, and dehydration in the Negev Desert. We followed the active bacterial community composition and their potential activity and showed that rainfall changes the bacterial community, triggers photosynthesis in soil phototrophs, and induces the production of extracellular polymeric substances that retain water during dehydration allowing bacterial cells to persist during the dehydration stage.

Adding an organo-mineral waste product from clean water treatment (WTR) is beneficial for a soil’s water retention, permeability, and strength properties. WTR added on its own significantly improves the shear strength and saturated hydraulic conductivity of soil. The co-application of WTR with compost provides the same benefits, whilst also improving soil’s water retention properties, which is beneficial for environmental applications where the soil health is critical.

We hypothesized the vertical distribution of SOC in temperate forest soils is limited by the percolating water in soil, and proposed a model derived from percolation theory to describe the vertical scaling of SOC. We evaluated the model with our field data and external data from published papers. Results show that regardless of the spatial variability of SOC, the vertical pattern of SOC follow the theoretical scaling well. There is also good agreement between prediction of SOC with observation.

To scrutinize the contribution of agricultural plastic covers to plastic pollution, we quantified soil-associated plastic debris (< 2 mm) in and around agricultural fields covered with different plastic types. PP fleeces and 50 μm thick PE films did not emit significant amounts of plastic debris into soil during their four-month use. However, thinner and perforated PE foils (40 μm) were associated with elevated PE contents of up to 35 μg/g. Their long-term use may thus favor plastic accumulation.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) and its labile fractions are influenced by a number of well-known abiotic factors and soil properties. These parameters interact with each other and vary in their influence on SOC depending on local conditions. To investigate the latter, the dependence of SOC accumulation on parameters and parameter combinations was statistically assessed that vary on a local scale depending on parent material, soil texture class and land use.

Freezing is increasingly used for X-ray micro computed tomography as required by the need to increase the resolution of the 3D images of the peat structure recorded. Two samples of a peat material were analyzed before and after freezing. Results showed an alteration of the structure in the whole range of pore size studied. They showed also that the consequences of the increase in the specific volume of water because of freezing appear as being responsible for the structure alteration recorded.

The study aims to analyze the ability of vegetation indices (VI’s) to map soil salt contents compared to the potential of evaporite mineral indices (EMI). The method used is based on simulated and satellite data acquired over two study areas: Kuwait-State and Omongwa salt-pan in Namibia. The obtained results demonstrated that it is impossible for VI’s to discriminate or to predict soil salinity. While, the EMI performed very well for the salt-affected soil classes mapping.

Intensified extreme weather events due to climate change can result in changes of soil erosion. These unclear developments make an improvement of soil erosion modelling all the more important. Assuming that soil erosion models cannot keep up with the current data, this work gives an overview of 44 models, their strengths and weaknesses and discusses their potential for further development with respect to new and improved soil and soil erosion assessment techniques.

Short-scale soil variability has received much less attention than regional scale. Chemical Depletion Fraction (CDF), a proxy for chemical weathering, was measured and simulated with SoilGen model along two opposite slopes in southern Spain. The results show that differences in CDF could not be explained by topography alone but by hydrological parameters. The model sensitivity test shows the maximum CDF value for intermediate precipitation as similar findings for other soil properties.

The Andes region is prone to natural hazards due to its steep topography and climatic variability. Anthropogenic activities further exacerbate environmental hazards and risks. This systematic review synthesizes our knowledge on the effectiveness of nature-based solutions. Conservation of natural vegetation and implementation of soil and water conservation measures had significant and positive effects on soil organic carbon and erosion mitigation.

Do-it-yourself hardware is a new approach for improving measurement resolution in research. Here we present a new low-cost, wireless underground sensor network for soil monitoring. All data logging, power, and communication components cost is $150, much cheaper than other available commercial solutions. We provide the complete building guide to reduce any technical barriers, which we hope will allow easier reproducibility and open new environmental monitoring applications.

We combined microstructure analysis via X-ray CT with carbon mineralization analysis via respirometry of intact soil cores from different land uses. We found that the amount of particulate organic matter (POM) exerted a dominant control on carbon mineralization in well-aerated topsoils, whereas soil moisture and macroporosity did not play role. This is because carbon mineralization mainly occurs in microbial hotspots around degrading POM, where it is decoupled from conditions of the bulk soil.

Phosphorus (P) is essential for life. We studied microbial processes driving P cycle in soils developed on the same rock but with different ages (0–100 y) under cold arid climate. Compared to previous studies under cold climate, we found a much slower weathering of P-containing minerals of soil development likely due to aridity. However, microbes dominate short-term dynamics and progressively redistribute P from the rock into more available forms making it available for plants at later stages.