Life Sciences Commons^™

The Effects Of Anthropogenic Stress On Nitrogen-Cycling Microbial Communities In Temperate And Tropical Soils, George S. Hamaoui Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation several research studies are discussed that characterize the effects of anthropogenic, or human-induced, stress on both ammonia-oxidizing and total bacterial soil microbial communities. The disturbances of land-use change in tropical, South American rainforests and artificial warming and nitrogen (N) fertilization in temperate, North American forests were investigated as these disturbances represent past and current disturbances caused by human landscape alteration and climate change. Initially, the response of soil ammonia-oxidizing microbial communities to land-use change from primary rainforest to pasture and, finally, back to secondary forest was determined. Next, these analyses of land-use change effects were expanded to …