Tag Archives: Soil Microorganisms

Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas | Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative

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Source: Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas | Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative

GR:  You can download the Atlas free.

Satellite images map forest-fungi relationships

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Even in the desert, fungi and other soil surface microorganisms are critical to ecosystem stability. They capture moisture and nutrients, block invasive species, and prevent soil erosion. Too bad that most have been destroyed by the hoves of grazing livestock and the movements of people on foot and in vehicles.

Bob Berwyn's avatarSummit County Citizens Voice

forest fungi A new study helps map the relationships between forests and fungi on a large scale. @bberwyn photo.

New analysis offers important forest health information

Staff Report

Colorful mushrooms that pop up in forests around the world are much more than decorative baubles. Much more than realized, fungi are key components of forest ecosystems, helping to regulate the carbon cycle and driving the nutrient exchange between soil and trees.

One recent study showed the the recent bark beetle epidemic across the western U.S. may have wiped out crucial fungi that are critical to forest regrowth, and other research shows they helped stabilize global climate during low-C02 eras.

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Rethinking assessment of biodiversity in northern New Zealand forests: Incorporating lichens, a neglected but important group, in vegetation monitoring

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The Australia & Pacific Science Foundation is supporting an @UnitecNZ biodiversity project https://t.co/PhtjHseILQ    from: www.apscience.org.au

GR:  Information on distribution, numbers, and trends is lacking for many species groups.  This project aims to add information for New Zealand forest lichens.  Many similar projects are needed worldwide.

A Weapon Against Climate Change May Be Right Under Our Feet

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Healthy soil may play a huge role in mitigating global warming and helping us adapt to it.  From: www.huffingtonpost.com

GR:  Healthy soil contains a rich array of microorganisms that are adapted to the site and to the plants and animals growing on the soil. Healthy soil blocks weed invasions, reduces flooding by absorbing precipitation, and produces the most plant growth.  Centuries of farming and livestock grazing have destroyed most soils.  Cows compact the soil, break up the essential surface and subsurface biological crusts. Flooding increases and carries with it the finest soil, the topsoil. Researchers have learned that it takes decades and even a century for damaged soils to recover.  I know of no places that gauge their rest-rotation cycles in decades.  However, that is what is required to restore the soil.  We must begin now restoring our soils. It’s too late to block climate change, but healthy soil is essential if we hope one day to have healthy ecosystems again.

Enhancing our soils’ biodiversity can improve human health

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Colorado State University’s Diana Wall and coauthors make the case to integrate soil biodiversity research into human health studies in a paper published online in Nature November 23.  phys.org

GR:  This research adds to doubts of human abilities to survive for very long on another planet or on this one if the ecosystems are replaced by concrete.

Converting A ‘Weedy’ Grass To Quality Forage For Livestock

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Messing with Nature and Calling it Range Management

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Purple threeawn

“While native plants are adapted to thrive in our region, they don’t always provide the best forage for livestock or wildlife. But what if you could change that? What if you could convert bad forage to good? That’s the question Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist Lance Vermeire asked when studying purple threeawn, a decidedly less than…”

Source: www.roundupweb.com

welfare ranchingGR:  The ignorance displayed by this range manager is shocking.  It should remind us all that focusing too closely on a single goal can cause us to overlook critical alternatives.  This article describes an instance where managing nature to benefit domestic livestock creates a willingness to take chances.  Range managers have gambled on new techniques and new species for many years.  They ignore negative possibilities and focus on their goal—more food for cows or sheep. They do not consider ecosystem responses to their new techniques.  They do not consider the effects on on soil microorganisms, and they do not worry about future invasion potential. The result of similar “range management” has been the loss of more than 100-million acres of productive native grasslands and shrublands in the western U. S.  Go here to read more about the results of foolhardy management of rangelands.

Asia-Pacific forest, grassland destruction continues to climb: FAO

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Forest and Grassland Destruction

Reuters:  Asia-Pacific nations are failing to halt the loss of natural forests and grasslands, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday, robbing people of their livelihoods and worsening environmental problems like desertification and climate change. Continue reading →

Idaho Sage Grouse Decision Looms

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Don’t Let Idaho Wolf Management Become a Distraction from Idaho’s Sage Grouse Management

Reblogged from article by Ken Cole in The Wildlife News

“With all of the horrible things happening in Idaho’s wolf management, it is hard to focus on other, perhaps more, important issues facing Idaho wildlife.  With a deadline of 2015 bearing down for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make a decision about whether the greater sage grouse should receive protection under the Endangered Species Act, the BLM and US Forest Service are engaging in a process to update the land use plans that define objectives and future management for sage grouse on the respective BLM districts and National Forests.  What is happening now is a giant shell game that will result in further declines in sage grouse and their habitat. Continue reading →

Death Beneath the Pavement

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Death Lies Beneath the Pavement

Entombing the life of the soil.

Beneath the pavement of the street and the concrete of the sidewalk lie the corpses of tiny creatures by millions entombed unknown and unremembered.

“When you thrust a shovel into the soil or tear off a piece of coral, you are, godlike, cutting through an entire world. You have crossed a hidden frontier known to very few. Immediately close at hand, around and beneath our feet, lies the least explored part of the planet’s surface. It is also the most vital place on Earth for human existence” (Wilson, 2010). Continue reading →