Soil biodiversity remains one of the least systematically studied components of global biodiversity, largely invisible in policy agendas. A coordinated soil biodiversity monitoring approach is urgently needed to enable national-level action.
Meeting our visiting Exmoor Ponies at Cuckoo Tors ecology research site near Buxton! We are managing this land to benefit nature and natural processes and the ponies are all part of the plan – provided through the Wild Peak Grazing Network with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust . Who would have thought …
I’m back from the IUCN UK Peatland Programme in Derry with Moors for the Future Partnership, connecting with people and organisations involved in caring for peatlands and restoring these special places. Peatlands need restoring because they have been damaged through land management choices (e.g. draining), air pollution (e.g. industrial revolution …
Out at Allestree Park Community Rewilding project with Field Biology students of University of Derby – performing habitat condition surveys with Eleanor Atkins and soil carbon flux measurements with Cyril Mbachu. The global mean CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is currently about 420 ppm – and the pre-industrial value was …
Prescribed burning is a common management strategy in peatlands that has the potential to affect soil physicochemistry, alter biogeochemical cycles and trigger changes in vegetation structure. How burning affects prokaryotic community composition across different soil profiles is not well understood. This study explored the effects of prescribed burning on the …
Editorial for a special issue on Biocrusts in Frontiers in Microbiology can be found here. The special issue consists of 25 articles which can be downloaded as an e-book here. The remit for submissions is reproduced below: Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are widely distributed throughout the world, and cover approximately …
Biological soil crusts, or biocrusts, are microbial communities found in soil surfaces in drylands and in other locations where vascular plant cover is incomplete. They are functionally significant for numerous ecosystem services, most notably in the C fixation and storage due to the ubiquity of photosynthetic microbes. Whereas carbon fixation …
This study explores the potential impact of natural soil on concrete crack self-healing in sub-surface structures. Three types of pre-cracked cement mortar samples were prepared for laboratory experiments, with some samples inoculated with bacterial healing agents, others supplemented with nutrients to attract indigenous soil bacteria, and plain mortar served as …
The use of bacteria-based self-healing concrete for sub-structures in ground conditions is an area of increasing interest for enhancing the durability and longevity of infrastructure. In line with this objective, the present study investigates the bio-self-healing performance when a cementitious material is embedded in clay soil with varying chemical exposures …
In research on self-healing concrete, the restorative performance can be evaluated by a wide range of techniques. However, most of these techniques can be challenging to apply to concrete samples embedded in soil without causing a significant disturbance to the test (as they require removing the samples from the soil, …