Desertification is a significant problem for arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions of Earth, whereby grasslands and shrublands become a comparatively barren desert as vegetation disappears over time. This poses an extreme ...
Karst landscapes are found worldwide, with the karst region in southwest China accounting for 5.8% of the national land area. The different chemical properties of the bedrock between karst carbonate rocks and non-karst clastic ...
Ecology
Mar 4, 2024
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A recent preprint posted to bioRxiv investigates how chickpeas have been successfully grown in lunar regolith simulants (LRS), marking the first time such a guideline has been established not only for chickpeas, but also ...
Space Exploration
Feb 8, 2024
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11
Most things you eat grew in soil or ate plants growing in soil. We don't think much about it, but soil is essential to life.
Biotechnology
Jan 29, 2024
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Moisture levels in the soil can impact the effects that microplastic pollution has on soil fungi, according to new research published in Environmental Microbiology.
Ecology
Jan 10, 2024
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8
Farmland often harbors a multitude of pathogens which attack plants and reduce yields. A Swiss research team has now shown that inoculating the soil with mycorrhizal fungi can help maintain or even improve yields without ...
Ecology
Nov 29, 2023
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Using micro-engineered soil models, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have investigated the effect of tiny polystyrene particles on bacteria and fungi. While these nanoplastics reduced both bacterial and fungal growth, ...
Bio & Medicine
Oct 9, 2023
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125
Plants are among the most intrepid explorers on Earth. Roughly 460 million years ago, the first plants started leaving lakes and rivers and appeared on land. At that time, the surface of Earth was mostly bare rock.
Biotechnology
Oct 6, 2023
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42
A recent study has found that soil is home to 59% of all life on Earth, from an insect feeding on the soil surface to a tiny microbe nestled in a soil pore. This discovery crowns soil as the most biodiverse habitat on the ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 17, 2023
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27
Land use change is one of the greatest threats to soil biodiversity and ecological functions. Tropical deforestation to establish monoculture cash tree plantations poses the greatest threat to biodiversity. However, how such ...
Ecology
Aug 16, 2023
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