myResearchSpace

The journal Urban Ecosystems has just published a Special Issue on Soils. As our planet and its human populations become increasingly urbanised, this would seem to be a growth area for the earth and ecological sciences. Some of the articles from this issue of the journal: A comparison of soil organic carbon stocks between residential turf ...

How's this for an eye-opener?  Budden AE, Tregenza T, Aarssen LW, Koricheva J, Leimu R, Lortie CJ. 2008. Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 23:4-6. Abstract Double-blind peer review, in which neither author nor reviewer identity are revealed, is rarely practised in ...

Musings on:Byrne LB, 2007. Habitat structure: A fundamental concept and framework for urban soil ecology. Urban Ecosystems, 10:255-274. The title's claim of a ''fundamental concept and framework'' are ambitious, and this paper has a few shortcomings that leave it falling somewhat short of such lofty goals. Despite this, the stated overall ...

Musings on:Stewart CE, Paustian K, Conant RT, Plant AF, Six A. 2007. Soil carbon saturation: concept, evidence and evaluation. Biogeochemistry 86:19-31. On first glance I thought that this was too obvious to be significant - if carbon input fluxes (e.g. litter fall) are increased (in a single step), then of course soil carbon will increase, but ...

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1st Perennial classics Ed. New York : HarperPerennial, 1998, 288 p. (first published 1974). I re-read this book over the last month or so. It's wonderful - a rare book of incredible linguistic beauty. It should be compulsory reading for anyone with an interest in the natural sciences, if only to remind ...

This one's from 21 May 2007: Davidson EA, Janssens IA (2006) Temperature sensitivity of soil carbon decomposition and feedbacks to climate change. Nature, 440:165-173. A useful article on the face of it, especially in light of Article 3.4 of Kyoto which allows for carbon credits on the basis of increased soil carbon storage. It provides a ...

Just read Tim Low's book... Low, Tim. 2003. The New Nature. Penguin Books Australia. Overall the thesis of this book seems to be that nature includes humans - whether we like it or not, we're intimately involved in ecosystems  -and therefore what humans have done and will do needs to be factored into our understanding of ...