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 …
Shrub encroachment is a well-documented phenomenon affecting many of the world’s drylands. The alteration of vegetation structure and species composition can lead to changes in local microclimate and soil properties which in turn affect carbon cycling. The objectives of this paper were to quantify differences in air temperatures, soil carbon, …
This is a gallery about Icelandic glaciers research fieldwork and contains 15 images.
Concerns are mounting at the increasing loss of economically important native and introduced UK tree species to fungal diseases. Key examples are ash dieback in European ash and red band needle blight in Scots pine from the respective fungal disease causing ascomycetes, Chalara fraxinea and Dothistroma septosporum. Identification of disease …
Peatlands are under threat from land management, anthropogenic pollution and climate change. These factors are implicated in severe degradation of ombrotrophic peatlands in the Southern Pennines of northern England. Significant areas of unconsolidated bare peat are both highly vulnerable to peat erosion and resistant to natural re-vegetation. Restoration efforts during …
The UK hosts 15-19% of global upland ombrotrophic (rain fed) peatlands that are estimated to store 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon and represent a critical upland habitat with regard to biodiversity and ecosystem services provision. Net production is dependent on an imbalance between growth of peat-forming Sphagnum mosses and microbial …
Soil is a non-renewable resource which sustains life and delivers countless beneficial ecosystem services that we need and take for granted. The microbial diversity of soil dwarfs above-ground plant diversity, but is intimately linked with it. Whilst macroscopic ecology is a well-developed discipline that supports our efforts to manage and …
Peatlands are under threat from land management, anthropogenic pollution and climate change. These factors are implicated in severe degradation of peatlands in the southern Pennines of northern England. Significant areas of unconsolidated bare peat are both highly vulnerable to peat erosion and resistant to natural re-vegetation. Restoration efforts during the …
Over 70% of upland peatlands in the Southern Pennines are degraded, with extensive areas of bare unconsolidated peat incised with networks of gullies often down to the bedrock. Land management, air pollution and climate change are implicated as major factors leading to loss of vegetation and susceptibility to erosion. Over …
The Kalahari of southern Africa is characterised by sparse vegetation interspersed with microbe-dominated biological soil crusts (BSC) which deliver a range of ecosystem services including soil stabilisation and carbon fixation. We characterised the bacterial communities of BSCs (0–1 cm depth) and the subsurface soil (1–2 cm depth) in an area typical of …