Exploring the potential offered by legacy soil databases for ecosystem services mapping of Central African soils

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Congolese rhizospheric soils as a rich source of new plant growth-promoting endophytic Piriformospora isolates

In the last decade, there has been an increasing focus on the implementation of plant growth-promoting (PGP) organisms as a sustainable option to compensate for poor soil fertility conditions in developing countries. Trap systems were used in an effort to isolate PGP fungi from rhizospheric soil samples collected in the region around Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo. With sudangrass as a host, a highly conducive environment was created for sebacinalean chlamydospore formation inside the plant roots resulting in a collection of 51 axenically cultured isolates of the elusive genus Piriformospora (recently transferred to the genus Serendipita). Based on morphological data, ISSR fingerprinting profiles and marker gene sequences, we propose that these isolates together with Piriformospora williamsii constitute a species complex designated Piriformospora (= Serendipita) 'williamsii.' A selection of isolates strongly promoted plant growth of in vitro inoculated Arabidopsis seedlings, which was evidenced by an increase in shoot fresh weight and a strong stimulation of lateral root formation. This isolate collection provides unprecedented opportunities for fundamental as well as translational research on the Serendipitaceae, a family of fungal endophytes in full expansion

Impact of agriculture on chemical properties of soils on basalt from Mindanao, the Philippines

Uncultivated and cultivated soils from Mindanao, the Philippines were sampled and studied to determine the impact of agriculture on their chemical properties The results of the study showed that cultivated soils, having lost some organic matter due to oxidation, have a lower CEC and a higher point of zero charge pH). The capacity of these soils to retain cations has decreased to a certain extent. In the subsoils of both soil types, there is a tendency for soil pH to coincide with pH, reflecting development of positive charge in the soil of that zone The sum of exchangeable bases and Al (ECEC) is found to be a good estimate of the EC of the soils

Patterning of graphene on silicon-on-insulator waveguides through laser ablation and plasma etching

We present the use of femtosecond laser ablation for the removal of monolayer graphene from silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguides, and the use of oxygen plasma etching through a metal mask to peel off graphene from the grating couplers attached to the waveguides. Through Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy, we show that the removal of graphene is successful with minimal damage to the underlying SOI waveguides. Finally, we employ both removal techniques to measure the contribution of graphene to the loss of grating-coupled graphene-covered SOI waveguides using the cut-back method. This loss contribution is measured to be 0.132 dB/μm