by ecos | Apr 13, 2016
Organic carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) are essential for heterotrophic soil microorganisms, and their bioavailability strongly influences ecosystem C and N cycling. We show here that the natural 15N abundance of the soil microbial biomass is affected by both the...
by ecos | Apr 13, 2016
Organisms acquire some elements from the environment with ease. Diffusion alone often provides enough carbon dioxide, oxygen and water. But getting other elements requires more effort, spurring unique evolutionary adaptations: instead of taking up nutrients from...
by ecos | Apr 13, 2016
1. Ecological restoration often involves returning ecosystem structure to some predisturbance reference state, but ecosystem function must also recover if restoration efforts are to be self-sustaining over the long term. In the south-western United States, ponderosa...
by ecos | Apr 13, 2016
Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests of the southwestern United States are a mosaic of stands where undisturbed forests are carbon sinks, and stands recovering from wildfires may be sources of carbon to the atmosphere for decades after the fire. However, the...
by ecos | Apr 12, 2016
The linkages between fluvial geomorphology and aquatic ecosystems are commonly conceptualized as a one-way causal chain in which geomorphic processes create the physical template for ecological dynamics. In streams with a travertine step-pool morphology, however,...
