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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Biologically Available Phosphorus In Biocrust-Dominated Soils Of The Chihuahuan Desert, Grace Margaret Crain
Biologically Available Phosphorus In Biocrust-Dominated Soils Of The Chihuahuan Desert, Grace Margaret Crain
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
In desert soils, phosphorus (P) is an important limiting nutrient and its cycling characteristics are less understood compared to nitrogen and carbon. Phosphorus cycling is controlled by both geochemical and biological factors. Traditionally, P availability has been characterized via sequential extraction analyses such as Hedley fractionation, but newly developed extraction methods allow for the examination of more biologically relevant P fractions, providing insight on mechanisms of P acquisition by plants and microbes. We examined these P cycling features in the context of biological soil crusts (biocrusts), which have been found to be important drivers of nutrient cycling and have the …
Effects Of Increasing Deciduous Shrub Litter On Ecosystem Functioning In Alpine Tundra, Alejandro Emmanuel Benhumea
Effects Of Increasing Deciduous Shrub Litter On Ecosystem Functioning In Alpine Tundra, Alejandro Emmanuel Benhumea
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Rising temperatures due to global warming have resulted in rapid environmental changes in northern environments, resulting in an increase in deciduous shrub growth which has the potential to alter soil ecosystem properties and processes. In order to address some potential mechanisms by which shrubs alter ecosystem properties and processes, we designed an experiment which separated the effects of physical shrub presence and the effects of litter quantity in a fully factorial experiment on a north facing alpine plateau in the southwest Yukon, Canada. Specifically, we asked the following questions: What are effects of shrub litter, independent of shrub presence, on …