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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Soil Homogenization: Plant Species Diversity, Ecosystem Properties And Soil Freezing Effects During Tallgrass Prairie Restoration, Holly J. Stover
Soil Homogenization: Plant Species Diversity, Ecosystem Properties And Soil Freezing Effects During Tallgrass Prairie Restoration, Holly J. Stover
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Tillage can increase soil uniformity in former agricultural sites. Within plant communities, niche-based species sorting may occur among distinct soil patches (microsites), increasing diversity, and the interfaces between microsites (microedges) also may provide unique microsites. However, the influence of soil homogenization and microedges on ecosystem processes and plant responses to stress have not been examined. My thesis assessed if adding microsites containing sand, woodchips, pits or mounds increased plant species diversity, productivity, decomposition and nitrogen retention (15N tracer) and buffered plant responses to soil freezing in a tallgrass prairie restoration on former cropland. Homogenization decreased diversity in flat …
A Comparison Of Community Composition Analyses For The Assessment Of Responses To Wood-Ash Soil Amendment By Free-Living Nematodes, Paul B.L. George
A Comparison Of Community Composition Analyses For The Assessment Of Responses To Wood-Ash Soil Amendment By Free-Living Nematodes, Paul B.L. George
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Land-use changes can have far-reaching consequences for resident communities and ecosystem functioning. Developing appropriate assessment methods to observe and quantify this change is an important application of community ecology. Here I compare four methods of community assessment for free-living soil nematodes under forest harvesting disturbance and wood ash application. Neither morphological assessment (richness, abundance, diversity) nor molecular assessment (morpho-richness using T-RFLP) was responsive to experimental treatments. Trait-based approaches (Maturity Index (MI) and Body Size Spectra (BSS)) were more sensitive to forest harvest and wood-ash amendment treatments. The efficacy of these methods was also qualitatively compared. Of all methods, the BSS …