Impact of basidiomycete fungi on the wettability of soil contaminated with a hydrophobic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon

Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) present a challenge to bioremediation because they are hydrophobic, thus influencing the water availability and repellency of soil. The addition of different concentrations of the PAH, anthracene, showed it to induce moderate levels of repellency. We investigated the efficacy of three basidiomycete fungal species on improving the wettability of soil by reducing repellency caused by contamination of soil with 7 ppm anthracene. A microcosm system was used that enabled determination of the impact of fungi on wettability at three locations down a 30 mm deep repacked soil core. Before incubation with fungi, the contaminated soil had a repellency of R = 3.12 ± 0.08 (s.e.). After 28 days incubation, Coriolus versicolor caused a significant reduction in repellency to R = 1.79 ± 0.35 (P <0.001) for the top section of the soil in a microcosm. Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Phlebia radiata did not influence repellency. None of the fungi had an effect at 20 mm depth

Thematic Issue on the Hydrological Effects of the Vegetation-Soil Complex

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Preface : Biohydrology – walking on drylands and swimming through pores

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Effects of soil structure complexity to root growth of plants with contrasting root architecture

This study was funded by the Scottish Food Security Alliance a partnership between the University of Aberdeen, University of Dundee and The James Hutton Institute. We thank all people that contributed to this work. In particular, Rong Qu, Dhin Md Islam, Dr. Stewart J Chalmers, Annette Raffan and Jaime Buckingham for providing technical support.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Plant mucilage increases pull-out resistance of root analogues from soil

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We wish to thank Dr. Muhammad Naveed and Dr. Ewan Oleghe for guidance on experimental approaches. This research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province of China (20210302123105) and the Shanxi Scholarship Council of China (2020-054).Peer reviewe

Dual-platform micromechanical characterization of soils : Oscillation shear rheometry and spherical indentation

Acknowledgements Funding from the NJ faculty at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) is acknowledged for partly funding RH’s Ph.D. work. PH acknowledges funding from UKRI (BB/L026058/1, ES/T003073/1, NE/S009167/1) that supported background research that led to this study. This research was partly funded by the Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences (NJ Faculty) of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Dual-platform micromechanical characterization of soils: Oscillation shear rheometry and spherical indentation

The dynamics of soil structure is caused by biotic and abiotic processes, with the onset and magnitude of deformation controlled by soil rheological and mechanical properties. Quantification of such properties is challenging because soil behaviour changes with soil moisture, but common rheological tests are not applicable over all consistency ranges. Here, we combine oscillation shear rheometry with spherical indentation mechanical measurements of soil to obtain greater characterization over a broader range of water contents. The elastic modulus could be measured with either approach, with good agreement found for measured silt and clay textured remoulded agricultural soils. For shear rheometry, plastic viscosity, complex modulus and shear yield stress were also obtained. The spherical indentation provided measurements of hardness and yield stress. Although yield stress was correlated between approaches, the values were orders of magnitude greater for the indenter (0.54 +/- 0.33 kPa vs. 34.4 +/- 31.2 kPa), presumably because of different loading and failure conditions. At drier water contents, yield stress varied more between the two tests on the clay soil, which corresponded with brittle fracture creating artefacts in shear rheometry measurements. Spherical indentation has not been widely applied to the testing of soils, but the good agreement over a wide water content range between elastic modulus obtained from spherical indentation measurements (0.66 +/- 0.27 MPa in wetter zone to 4.45 +/- 2.53 MPa in drier zone) and shear rheometry (0.47 +/- 0.11 MPa in wetter zone to 2.02 +/- 0.98 MPa in drier zone) is promising. Moreover, spherical indentation can be applied to materials varying from brittle to viscous and allows testing on structurally intact soil aggregates. The geometry of a spherical indenter may more closely mimic contacting soil aggregates, so scope exists to extend the approach to explore the slumping of aggregated seedbeds produced by tillage

Preface to the special issue on biohydrology dedicated to the memory of Dr. Louis W. Dekker

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The role of sampling strategy on apparent temporal stability of soil moisture under subtropical hydroclimatic conditions

Financial support for this research was provided through the joint China-UK Red Soil Critical Zone project funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC: 41771263; 41571130053) and the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NE/N007611/1). Additional funding was provided by the “135 innovation project” from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS:ISSASIP1648). Special thanks go to the staff of the Ecological Experimental Station of Red Soil of the Institute of Soil Science of CAS.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Modeling biochar-soil depth dependency on fecal coliform straining under subsurface drip irrigation

Funding Information: This work was supported by Shahrekord University, Iran. N. Sepehrnia is funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, United Kingdom under the grant agreement No. 101026287. We acknowledge University of Aberdeen, UK for supporting this project.Peer reviewedPublisher PD