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Determining the factors that contribute to soil resilience and its ability to sustain vital functions in managed landscapes across a range of scales

Lead Research Organisation: Inst of Grassland and Environmental Res
Department Name: UNLISTED

Abstract

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Technical Summary

The overall objective is to add significantly to the body of scientific knowledge required to design and confidently predict the outcome of management practices that will maintain or enhance soil quality, as defined by fitness for current and future land use, while also adapting to or minimising local and global change. This objective will be met by: 1. Developing and applying novel techniques to understand the biology and function of soil organisms or communities that mediate the processes of biogeochemical cycling (water, nutrients and pollutants) and pollutant degradation. 2. Elucidating how carbon-derived energy drives biogeochemical cycles and food webs in the soil-plant system, and how knowledge of its interaction with other energy inputs (such as water flow and tillage) might serve to provide a unified systems-based approach to the understanding of soil resilience and function across scales. 3. Exploring and modelling the physical and biological architecture of soils and the spatio-temporal interactions between soil-inhabiting organisms (including plants), molecules and particles. 4. Measuring and modelling the spatial and temporal variation of biogeochemical cycles across a range of scales from rhizosphere through catchment to global.

Planned Impact

unavailable

Publications

10 25 50

publication icon
Weber P (2008) Large old trees influence patterns of delta13C and delta15N in forests. in Rapid communications in mass spectrometry : RCM

 
Description 1. Developed and applied techniques to understand the biology and function of soil organisms that mediate the processes of biogeochemical cycling
2. Studied how carbon interacts with biogeochemical cycles in agricultural systems
3. Explored and modelled the physical and biological architecture of soils and the spatio-temporal interactions between soil-inhabiting organisms (including plants), molecules and particles
4. Measured and modelled the spatial and temporal variation of biogeochemical cycles
Exploitation Route The findings can be used to assess the factors that contribute to soil resilience and its ability to sustain functions in agricultural landscapes
Sectors Agriculture

Food and Drink