Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The structure of the soil also acts as a buffer, separating organisms and preventing strong interactions. [12] Many soil organisms, for example bacteria, can remain dormant through difficult times and reproduce quickly once conditions improve, making them resilient to disturbance. Stability of the system is reduced by the use of nitrogen ...
There are many ways that the soil food web is an integral part of landscape processes. Soil organisms decompose organic compounds, including manure, plant residues, and pesticides, preventing them from entering water and becoming pollutants. They sequester nitrogen and other nutrients that might otherwise enter groundwater, and they fix ...
Soil life, soil biota, soil fauna, or edaphon is a collective term that encompasses all organisms that spend a significant portion of their life cycle within a soil profile, or at the soil-litter interface. These organisms include earthworms, nematodes, protozoa, fungi, bacteria, different arthropods, as well as some reptiles (such as snakes ...
Fungi are abundant in soil, but bacteria are more abundant. Fungi are important in the soil as food sources for other, larger organisms, pathogens, beneficial symbiotic relationships with plants or other organisms and soil health. Fungi can be split into species based primarily on the size, shape and color of their reproductive spores, which ...
The term nutrient recycling appears in a 1964 paper on the food ecology of the wood stork: "While the periodic drying up and reflooding of the marshes creates special survival problems for organisms in the community, the fluctuating water levels favor rapid nutrient recycling and subsequent high rates of primary and secondary production" [47]: 97
Soil that is healthy is fertile and productive. [29] But soil erosion leads to a loss of topsoil, organic matter, and nutrients; it breaks down soil structure and decreases water storage capacity, reducing fertility and water availability to plant roots. Soil erosion is, therefore, a major threat to soil biodiversity. [30]
When soil is irrigated with high salinity water or sufficient water is not draining out from the irrigated soil, the soil would convert into saline soil or lose its fertility. Saline water enhance the turgor pressure or osmotic pressure requirement which impedes the off take of water and nutrients by the plant roots.
Soil water content can be measured as volume or weight. Soil moisture levels, in order of decreasing water content, are saturation, field capacity, wilting point, air dry, and oven dry. Field capacity describes a drained wet soil at the point water content reaches equilibrium with gravity. Irrigating soil above field capacity risks percolation ...