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Article
Open AccessEarthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass
Earthworms co-determine whether soil, as the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir, acts as source or sink for photosynthetically fixed CO2. However, conclusive evidence for their role in stabilising or destabilis...
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Article
Understanding the mechanisms of soil water repellency from nanoscale to ecosystem scale: a review
Soil water repellency (SWR) can interrupt water infiltration that may decline plant growth and potentially trigger soil erosion. Until now research has been mainly focused on understanding the mechanisms of SW...
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Article
Abundance of lipids in differently sized aggregates depends on their chemical composition
Evidence for a vital role of soil mineral matrix interactions in lipid preservation is steadily increasing. However, it remains unclear whether solvent-extractable (‘free’) or hydrolyzable (‘bound’) lipids, in...
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Article
Open AccessFern genomes elucidate land plant evolution and cyanobacterial symbioses
Ferns are the closest sister group to all seed plants, yet little is known about their genomes other than that they are generally colossal. Here, we report on the genomes of Azolla filiculoides and Salvinia cucul...
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Article
Open AccessSoil Water Repellency: A Potential Driver of Vegetation Dynamics in Coastal Dunes
Coastal dunes are valuable and complex ecosystems, meaning that predicting their response to anthropogenic pressure is challenging. A potential driver of complexity that links soil, water, and vegetation dynam...
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Article
Open AccessLipid Yield and Composition of Azolla filiculoides and the Implications for Biodiesel Production
The aquatic fern Azolla is one of the fastest-growing nitrogen-fixing plants on Earth and therefore considered as a potential source of biomass for bioenergy production. The lipid fraction from Azolla filiculoide...
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Article
Open AccessCan isoprenoids in leaves and roots of plants serve as biomarkers for past vegetation changes? A case study from the Ecuadorian Andes
Large-scale clear-cutting and burning caused the altitude of the natural upper forest line (UFL) in the Northern Ecuadorian Andes to decline to the point that its ‘natural’ position is now uncertain. To obtain...
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Article
Biochemical origin and refractory properties of humic acid extracted from maize plants: the contribution of lignin
The soil organic carbon (SOC) pool is the largest terrestrial reservoir of carbon and plant residues play an important role in its maintenance. Up to 70–80% of SOC in arable soil is composed of humic substance...
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Article
Fate of Tannins in Corsican Pine Litter
Tannins are ubiquitous in higher plants and also in litter and soils where they affect many biogeochemical processes. Despite this well-recognized role, their fate in litter and mineral soils is hardly known, ...
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Article
The Complementarity of Extractable and Ester-Bound Lipids in a Soil Profile Under Pine
Extractable and solvent insoluble, ester-bound lipids were analysed in an acid, sandy soil profile under Corsican pine. The n-alkanes and alkanoic acids from the soil profile showed rather poor correlations with ...
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Article
Short- and Long-term Tannin Induced Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus Dynamics in Corsican Pine Litter
Pine litter amended with either tannic acid (TA) or condensed tannins (CTs) was studied to assess the effects on C, N and P mineralization in relation to the fate of tannins by incubation experiments during va...
