Increased carbon storage in ecosystems due to elevated CO2 may help stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations and slow global warming. Many field studies have found that elevated CO2 leads to higher carbon assimilation by plants, and others suggest that this can lead to higher carbon storage in soils, the largest and […]
Forest management, climatic change, and atmospheric N deposition can affect soil biogeochemistry, but their combined effects are not well understood. We examined the effects of water and N amendments and forest thinning and burning on soil N pools and fluxes in ponderosa pine forests near Flagstaff, Arizona (USA). Using a […]
We report the first simultaneous measurements of δ15N and δ13C of DNA extracted from surface soils. The isotopic composition of DNA differed significantly among nine different soils. The δ13C and δ15N of DNA was correlated with δ13C and δ15N of soil, respectively, suggesting that the isotopic composition of DNA is […]
Organisms acquire some elements from the environment with ease. Diffusion alone often provides enough carbon dioxide, oxygen and water. But getting other elements requires more effort, spurring unique evolutionary adaptations: instead of taking up nutrients from the soil, some plants in acidic bogs trap insects to obtain nitrogen and phosphorus […]
Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests of the southwestern United States are a mosaic of stands where undisturbed forests are carbon sinks, and stands recovering from wildfires may be sources of carbon to the atmosphere for decades after the fire. However, the relative magnitude of these sinks and sources has never […]
Flow diversion and invasive species are two major threats to freshwater ecosystems, threats that restoration efforts attempt to redress. Yet, few restoration projects monitor whether removal of these threats improve target charac- teristics of the ecosystem. Fewer still have an appropriate experimental design from which causal inferences can be drawn […]
The linkages between fluvial geomorphology and aquatic ecosystems are commonly conceptualized as a one-way causal chain in which geomorphic processes create the physical template for ecological dynamics. In streams with a travertine step-pool morphology, however, biotic processes strongly influence the formation and growth of travertine dams, creating the potential for […]
Changing climate and a legacy of fire-exclusion have increased the probability of high-severity wildfire, leading to an increased risk of forest carbon loss in ponderosa pine forests in the southwestern USA. Efforts to reduce high-severity fire risk through forest thinning and prescribed burning require both the removal and emission of […]
Management of forests for carbon uptake is an important tool in the effort to slow the increase in atmospheric CO2 and global warming. However, some current policies governing forest carbon credits actually promote avoidable CO2 release and punish actions that would increase long-term carbon storage. In fire-prone forests, management that […]
Elevated atmospheric CO2 tends to stimulate plant productivity, which could either stimulate or suppress the processing of soil carbon, thereby feeding back to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We employed an acid-hydrolysis-incubation method and a net nitrogen-mineralization assay to assess stability of soil carbon pools and short-term nitrogen dynamics in a Florida […]