News tagged with soil nutrients

Ants take on Goliath role in protecting trees in the savanna from elephants

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ants are not out of their weight class when defending trees from the appetite of nature's heavyweight, the African elephant, a new University of Florida study finds.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 02, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study: 800-year-old farmers could teach us how to protect the Amazon

In the face of mass deforestation of the Amazon, we could learn from its earliest inhabitants who managed their farmland sustainably. Research from an international team of archaeologists and paleoecologists, ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (14) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Restored wetlands rarely equal condition of original wetlands

Wetland restoration is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States that aims to create ecosystems similar to those that disappeared over the past century. But a new analysis of restoration projects ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jan 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Fungi-filled forests are critical for endangered orchids

When it comes to conserving the world's orchids, not all forests are equal. In a paper to be published Jan. 25 in the journal Molecular Ecology, Smithsonian ecologists revealed that an orchid's fate hinges ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Tree rings may underestimate climate response to volcanic eruptions: study

Some climate cooling caused by past volcanic eruptions may not be evident in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature change because large enough temperature drops lead to greatly shortened or even absent growing seasons, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 05, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 22 | with audio podcast

Agricultural bacteria: Blowing in the wind

The 1930s Dust Bowl proved what a disastrous effect wind can have on dry, unprotected topsoil. Now a new study has uncovered a less obvious, but equally troubling impact of wind: Not only can it carry away soil particles, ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created May 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1

Analysis raises atmospheric, ecologic and economic doubts about forest bioenergy

A large, global move to produce more energy from forest biomass may be possible and already is beginning in some places, but scientists say in a new analysis that such large-scale bioenergy production from ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Bacterial plasmids -- the freeloading and the heavy-lifters -- balance the high price of disease

Studying self-replicating genetic units, called plasmids, found in one of the world's widest-ranging pathogenic soil bacteria -- the crown-gall-disease-causing microorganism Agrobacterium tumefaciens -- Ind ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Diverse ecosystems are crucial climate change buffer

Preserving diverse plant life will be crucial to buffer the negative effects of climate change and desertification in in the world's drylands, according to a new landmark study.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study finds trees not so large carbon sinks

The capacity of trees to counter rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere may not be as great as previously thought, according to a new study with significant implications for predicting future climate ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Oct 27, 2010 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (10) | comments 24 | with audio podcast

Not just another brick in the (plant cell) wall

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a new study revealing key steps for controlling plant growth, researchers have shown how the assembly of components of the plant cell wall regulates growth of root hairs. Root hairs are ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jun 17, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Coconut palms bring ecological change to tropics, researchers say

(PhysOrg.com) -- Those graceful coconut palms swaying in tropical breezes are lowering nutrient levels in the soils and the plants around them, thereby altering the eating habits of animals. Researchers say ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jan 21, 2010 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Cooking better biochar: Study improves recipe for soil additive

Backyard gardeners who make their own charcoal soil additives, or biochar, should take care to heat their charcoal to at least 450 degrees Celsius to ensure that water and nutrients get to their plants, according ...

Biology / Other

created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 2

Acid rain poses a previously unrecognized threat to Great Lakes sugar maples

(PhysOrg.com) -- The number of sugar maples in Upper Great Lakes forests is likely to decline in coming decades, according to University of Michigan ecologists and their colleagues, due to a previously unrecognized ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jan 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Plants prefer their kin, crowd out competition from strangers

(PhysOrg.com) -- Plants don't mind sharing space with their kin but when they're potted with strangers of the same species they start invigorating their leaves, a study by McMaster University reveals.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 16, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0