Soil Types News

November 10, 2024

Top Headlines

How Gophers Brought Mount St. Helens Back to Life in One Day

Nov. 6, 2024 — When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, lava incinerated anything living for miles around. As an experiment, scientists dropped gophers onto parts of the scorched mountain for only 24 hours. The benefits from that single day were undeniable and still ...

Bacteria Work Together to Thrive in Difficult Conditions

Sep. 13, 2024 — In a new study, researchers have determined through both statistical analysis and in experiments that soil pH is a driver of microbial community composition -- but that the need to address toxicity released during nitrogen cycling ultimately shapes ...

Study Shows Natural Regrowth of Tropical Forests Has Immense Potential to Address Environmental Concerns

Oct. 30, 2024 — A new study finds that up to 215 million hectares of land (an area larger than Mexico) in humid tropical regions around the world has the potential to naturally regrow. That much forest could store ...

Invasive Plants Drive Homogenization of Soil Microbial Communities Across U.S.

Oct. 28, 2024 — A new study reveals that invasive plants are reshaping soil microbial communities across the U.S., making them more uniform and altering how ecosystems ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:16pm EST

Plant Diversity Enhances Soil Carbon Retention

Oct. 24, 2024 — A new study shows that increasing plant diversity in agriculture can be used to improve the carbon sequestration potential of agricultural soils. As the agricultural sector strives to reduce its ...

Scientists Discover How Fungi Interact With Soil Actinomycetes

Oct. 22, 2024 — In a recent study, researchers investigated the interactions between Pyricularia oryzae, the rice blast fungus, and the beneficial soil bacterium Streptomyces griseus. They found that P. oryzae ...

Soil's Secret Language: Researchers Decode Plant-to-Fungi Communication

Oct. 17, 2024 — Researchers have cracked the code of plant-to-fungi communication in a new study. Using baker's yeast, the researchers discovered that the plant hormone strigolactone (SL) activates fungal genes and ...

Loss of 'Nitrogen Fixers' Threatens Biodiversity, Ecosystems

Oct. 18, 2024 — New research shows how human activities, like fertilizer use and polluting, are impacting nitrogen-fixing plants which are crucial for maintaining healthy ecosystems by adding nitrogen to the ...

Honey Bees in Demand: New Contract Strategies to Support Pollination Services

Oct. 15, 2024 — As the world's native bee populations are declining, crop production requiring pollinators increasingly relies on commercial pollination services. In ...

Arthropods Dominate Plant Litter Decomposition in Drylands

Oct. 15, 2024 — An analysis of leaf litter breakdown in climatically diverse habitats shows that decomposition by larger invertebrates dominates in hot, dry regions and warmer seasons. Researchers have shown that ...

Changing Watering Practices to Improve Tomato Plant Health

Oct. 14, 2024 — Some people believe that talking to your plants makes them thrive. While there's limited scientific support for sound improving plant health, there's a growing amount of evidence about the benefits ...

Decades-Long Research Reveals New Understanding of How Climate Change May Impact Caches of Arctic Soil Carbon

Oct. 3, 2024 — Utilizing one of the longest-running ecosystem experiments in the Arctic, researchers have developed a better understanding of the interplay among ...

Antarctic 'Greening' at Dramatic Rate

Oct. 7, 2024 — Vegetation cover across the Antarctic Peninsula has increased more than tenfold over the last four decades, new research ...

A Tool to Enhance the Taste and Texture of Sourdough and Study the Complexity of Microbiomes

Oct. 1, 2024 — Researchers explore how acetic acid bacteria shapes emergent properties of sourdough, with implications across complex microbial ...

Different Adaptation Strategies to Saline Soils Identified in Neighboring Populations of the Same Plant Species

Oct. 1, 2024 — Researchers have identified two divergent adaptive responses to soil salinity in populations of the same wild species found in the Catalonia's coastal area, the Brassica fruticulosa, and have ...

Discovery of 3,775-Year-Old Preserved Log Supports 'Wood Vaulting' as a Climate Solution

Sep. 27, 2024 — A new study suggests that an ordinary old log could help refine strategies to tackle climate change. A team of researchers analyzed a 3,775-year-old log and the soil it was excavated from. Their ...

Transforming Agriculture from Carbon Source to Sink

Sep. 23, 2024 — The food system is one of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet, making the reduction of emissions in this sector a priority for policymakers around the world. ...

Human Urine Could Be Used as Eco-Friendly Crop Fertilizer

Sep. 23, 2024 — Bacterial communities in soil are as resilient to human urine as synthetic fertilizers -- making recycling the bodily fluid as a fertilizer for agricultural crops a viable ...

Soil Footprint: A Simple Indicator of a Crop's Impact on Soil Erosion

Sep. 17, 2024 — A research team proposes a method to calculate, compare and communicate how different crops affect the loss of agricultural soil, with the aim of raising awareness of this problem and promoting ...

How Plant Communities Change When Conquering Uninhabited Ground

Sep. 17, 2024 — Some plants are able to take over uninhabited spaces like sand dunes, volcanic substrates and rockfall areas. The first colonizers have specific traits that allow them to grow in such hostile ...

How Gaps in the Canopy of a Floodplain Influence Microclimate and Soil Biological Activity

Sep. 16, 2024 — Canopy gaps in a mixed floodplain forest have a direct effect on forest soil temperature and moisture, but only have a minor impact on soil biological ...

The Legacy of Corn Nitrogen Fertilizer: Study Shows Lengthy Impact in Tile Drained Systems

Sep. 12, 2024 — Midwestern soils are among the most productive in the world, thanks in part to extensive tile drainage systems that remove excess water from crop fields. But water isn't the only thing flowing ...

Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture Suggests Even Greater Challenges to the Environment, Global Food Supply and Public Health

Sep. 12, 2024 — A sweeping global research review of the links between climate and agriculture reveals the likelihood of an emergent feedback loop whereby, as climate change puts more pressure on the global food ...

Biogeochemists Make Recommendations for Tackling 'Hidden' Phosphorus

Sep. 11, 2024 — As the world tries to mitigate agriculture's effect on the environment, much of the story can be found in the soils, which stores and cycles nutrient elements of carbon, nitrogen, and ...

Cattle Raised by Maasai Farmers Aren't the Conservation Villains They've Been Made out to Be, Study Finds

Sep. 9, 2024 — A new study has found the pastoral practices of the Indigenous Maasai people of Kenya had almost no discernible positive or negative effect on the ecological well-being of the Maasai Mara National ...

Growing Key Biomethane Crop on Peat Emits 3 Times More CO2 Than Using Natural Gas

Sep. 9, 2024 — There has been a rapid expansion in growing crops such as maize to produce biomethane as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, to help reach Net Zero. But some of this increased cultivation, on ...

Making Baby Food Safer: Arsenic and Cadmium Contamination Levels in Rice

Sep. 5, 2024 — Researchers found that flooded rice fields tend to have higher amounts of arsenic and lower amounts of cadmium while drier rice fields have lower amounts of arsenic and higher amounts of cadmium. The ...

How Earth's Most Intense Heat Wave Ever Impacted Life in Antarctica

Sep. 4, 2024 — An atmospheric river brought warm, moist air to the coldest and driest corner of the planet in 2022, pushing temperatures 70 degrees above average. A new study reveals what happened to ...

Dangerous Airborne Fungus Boosted by California Droughts

Sep. 3, 2024 — Researchers have identified the seasonal and climate-based cycles of Valley fever, an emerging but dangerous fungal disease spread through dust in the ...

Fungus-Controlled Robots Tap Into the Unique Power of Nature

Sep. 4, 2024 — In creating a pair of new robots, researchers cultivated an unlikely component, one found on the forest floor: fungal mycelia. By harnessing mycelia's innate electrical signals, the researchers ...

Agricultural Impact of Flooding

Aug. 29, 2024 — Entomology professor Esther Ngumbi studies how flooding affects crop plants and the insects that feed on them. She argues in a new review that flooding is a largely overlooked factor in studies meant ...

A Leaky Sink: Carbon Emissions from Forest Soil Will Likely Grow With Rising Temperatures

Aug. 23, 2024 — The soils of northern forests are key reservoirs that help keep the carbon dioxide that trees inhale and use for photosynthesis from making it back into the ...

Pilot Study Uses Recycled Glass to Grow Plants for Salsa Ingredients

Aug. 21, 2024 — Tortilla chips and fresh salsa are tasty, but they could be even more appealing if you grow the ingredients yourself. Now, researchers report that some salsa ingredients -- cilantro, bell pepper and ...

It's a Rave: Underground Acoustics Amplify Soil Health

Aug. 16, 2024 — Barely audible to human ears, healthy soils produce a cacophony of sounds in many forms -- a bit like an underground rave concert of bubble pops and clicks. Special recordings made by ecologists show ...