Soil Types News

December 23, 2024

Top Headlines

Shrubs Can Help or Hinder a Forest's Recovery After Wildfire

Dec. 16, 2024 — When and where to plant tree seedlings to restore forests after wildfires has a lot to do with shrubs, finds a new ...

How the Dirt Under Our Feet Could Affect Human Health

Dec. 12, 2024 — Researchers are linking human activity to increased gene transfer from soil bacteria to ...

Ugh, My Stomach: Identifying Amino Acids That Prevent Sporulation in Food Poisoning

Dec. 12, 2024 — A team analyzed the amino acids that affect the formation of spores in a bacterium that causes food poisoning, Clostridium perfringens, and identified serine as an amino acid that inhibits spore ...

Australia's Extinction Tally Is Worse Than We Thought

Dec. 11, 2024 — A new study estimates that more than 9000 insects and other native invertebrates have become extinct in Australia since European arrival in 1788 and between 1-3 additional species become extinct every ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:14pm EST

Overlooked Emissions in California's Salton Sea Air Basin

Dec. 3, 2024 — Nitrogen oxide emissions from soil in California's Salton Sea air basin are 10 times larger than state estimates, finds a new study of rural Imperial and Coachella ...

Durian Helps Rice Plants Thrive in Salty Soil

Dec. 5, 2024 — Extreme weather and pollution have increased the salt content in some soil, making growing conditions harsh for salt-sensitive crops like rice. Now, researchers detail a possible solution that ...

Streams Near Farms Emit High Levels of Greenhouse Gas

Dec. 3, 2024 — Researchers found that emissions from streams are largely derived from nitrification processes in agricultural soils. Further, they found that stream emissions make up a much greater portion of the ...

Warming Temperatures May Shrink Wetland Carbon Sinks

Dec. 2, 2024 — A major global study using teabags as a measuring device shows warming temperatures may reduce the amount of carbon stored in wetlands. The international team of scientists buried 19,000 bags of ...

Populations Overheat as Major Cities Fail Canopy Goals

Nov. 19, 2024 — A new study measuring access to nature for eight major global cities found most still have inadequate canopy cover, despite access to an abundance of ...

Building Roots in Glass, a Bio-Inspired Approach to Creating 3D Microvascular Networks Using Plants and Fungi

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new bio-inspired approach to building complex 3D microfluidic networks by utilizing plant roots and fungal hyphae as ...

American Soil Losing More Nutrients for Crops Due to Heavier Rainstorms

Nov. 18, 2024 — Phosphorus, a nutrient in soil essential for sustaining most forms of life, is increasingly disappearing from land as it is washed into waterways throughout the United States, according to a new ...

Bee Alert: Pesticides Pose a Real Threat to Over 70% of Wild Bees

Nov. 18, 2024 — A new study reveals alarming risks that pesticides pose to ground-nesting bees, which are crucial for pollination and food production. As agriculture increasingly relies on pesticides to protect ...

Living Microbes Discovered in Earth's Driest Desert

Nov. 14, 2024 — A new technique allows researchers to separate external and internal DNA to identify microbes colonizing the hostile environment of the Atacama ...

Diverse and Diverging Demands on Forests in Germany

Nov. 14, 2024 — Forests provide biodiversity, ecosystem functions, income and much more. How can these diverse and seemingly diverging demands be met? An international research team addressed this question by ...

GPS System for Microorganisms Could Revolutionize Police Work

Nov. 7, 2024 — A research team developed an AI tool that traces back the most recent places you have been to. The tool acts like a satellite navigation system, but instead of guiding you to your hotel, it ...

How Gophers Brought Mount St. Helens Back to Life in One Day

Nov. 6, 2024 — When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, lava incinerated anything living for miles around. As an experiment, scientists dropped gophers onto parts of the scorched mountain for only 24 hours. The ...

Study Shows Natural Regrowth of Tropical Forests Has Immense Potential to Address Environmental Concerns

Oct. 30, 2024 — A new study finds that up to 215 million hectares of land (an area larger than Mexico) in humid tropical regions around the world has the potential to naturally regrow. That much forest could store ...

Invasive Plants Drive Homogenization of Soil Microbial Communities Across U.S.

Oct. 28, 2024 — A new study reveals that invasive plants are reshaping soil microbial communities across the U.S., making them more uniform and altering how ecosystems ...

Plant Diversity Enhances Soil Carbon Retention

Oct. 24, 2024 — A new study shows that increasing plant diversity in agriculture can be used to improve the carbon sequestration potential of agricultural soils. As the agricultural sector strives to reduce its ...

Scientists Discover How Fungi Interact With Soil Actinomycetes

Oct. 22, 2024 — In a recent study, researchers investigated the interactions between Pyricularia oryzae, the rice blast fungus, and the beneficial soil bacterium Streptomyces griseus. They found that P. oryzae ...

Loss of 'Nitrogen Fixers' Threatens Biodiversity, Ecosystems

Oct. 18, 2024 — New research shows how human activities, like fertilizer use and polluting, are impacting nitrogen-fixing plants which are crucial for maintaining healthy ecosystems by adding nitrogen to the ...

Soil's Secret Language: Researchers Decode Plant-to-Fungi Communication

Oct. 17, 2024 — Researchers have cracked the code of plant-to-fungi communication in a new study. Using baker's yeast, the researchers discovered that the plant hormone strigolactone (SL) activates fungal genes ...

Honey Bees in Demand: New Contract Strategies to Support Pollination Services

Oct. 15, 2024 — As the world's native bee populations are declining, crop production requiring pollinators increasingly relies on commercial pollination services. In the U.S., the beekeeping industry is in ...

Arthropods Dominate Plant Litter Decomposition in Drylands

Oct. 15, 2024 — An analysis of leaf litter breakdown in climatically diverse habitats shows that decomposition by larger invertebrates dominates in hot, dry regions and warmer seasons. Researchers have shown that ...

Changing Watering Practices to Improve Tomato Plant Health

Oct. 14, 2024 — Some people believe that talking to your plants makes them thrive. While there's limited scientific support for sound improving plant health, there's a growing amount of evidence about the ...

Antarctic 'Greening' at Dramatic Rate

Oct. 7, 2024 — Vegetation cover across the Antarctic Peninsula has increased more than tenfold over the last four decades, new research ...

Decades-Long Research Reveals New Understanding of How Climate Change May Impact Caches of Arctic Soil Carbon

Oct. 3, 2024 — Utilizing one of the longest-running ecosystem experiments in the Arctic, researchers have developed a better understanding of the interplay among plants, microbes and soil nutrients -- findings that ...

A Tool to Enhance the Taste and Texture of Sourdough and Study the Complexity of Microbiomes

Oct. 1, 2024 — Researchers explore how acetic acid bacteria shapes emergent properties of sourdough, with implications across complex microbial ...

Different Adaptation Strategies to Saline Soils Identified in Neighboring Populations of the Same Plant Species

Oct. 1, 2024 — Researchers have identified two divergent adaptive responses to soil salinity in populations of the same wild species found in the Catalonia's coastal area, the Brassica fruticulosa, and have ...

Discovery of 3,775-Year-Old Preserved Log Supports 'Wood Vaulting' as a Climate Solution

Sep. 27, 2024 — A new study suggests that an ordinary old log could help refine strategies to tackle climate change. A team of researchers analyzed a 3,775-year-old log and the soil it was excavated from. Their ...

Transforming Agriculture from Carbon Source to Sink

Sep. 23, 2024 — The food system is one of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet, making the reduction of emissions in this sector a priority for policymakers around the world. ...

Human Urine Could Be Used as Eco-Friendly Crop Fertilizer

Sep. 23, 2024 — Bacterial communities in soil are as resilient to human urine as synthetic fertilizers -- making recycling the bodily fluid as a fertilizer for agricultural crops a viable ...

Soil Footprint: A Simple Indicator of a Crop's Impact on Soil Erosion

Sep. 17, 2024 — A research team proposes a method to calculate, compare and communicate how different crops affect the loss of agricultural soil, with the aim of raising awareness of this problem and promoting ...

How Plant Communities Change When Conquering Uninhabited Ground

Sep. 17, 2024 — Some plants are able to take over uninhabited spaces like sand dunes, volcanic substrates and rockfall areas. The first colonizers have specific traits that allow them to grow in such hostile ...