Worldwide comparison of carbon stocks and fluxes between native and non-native forests.

Climate change is one of the main challenges that human societies are currently facing. Given that forests represent major natural carbon sinks in terrestrial ecosystems, administrations worldwide are launching broad-scale programs to promote forests, including stands of non-native trees. Yet, non-native trees may have profound impacts on the functions and services of forest ecosystems, including the carbon cycle, as they may differ widely from native trees in structural and functional characteristics.

Selective collection of absorbent hygienic products: The results of a pilot test and waste characterization.

Absorbent hygiene products (AHP) are single-use materials that are discarded after use. These products include diapers for babies and adults, menstrual pads, absorbent pads, and other personal hygiene items that represent a significant proportion of municipal solid waste (MSW). In this research, the impact of a pilot campaign for the separation of these AHP in a neighborhood of a city in eastern Spain has been studied.

The global distribution and environmental drivers of the soil antibiotic resistome.

Background: Little is known about the global distribution and environmental drivers of key microbial functional traits such as antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Soils are one of Earth's largest reservoirs of ARGs, which are integral for soil microbial competition, and have potential implications for plant and human health. Yet, their diversity and global patterns remain poorly described.

Efficiency of a pilot scheme for the separate collection of the biowaste from municipal solid waste in Spain.

According to EU regulations, member states shall take measures to encourage the recycling of biowaste in a way that fulfils a high level of environmental protection. In Spain, the separate collection of biowaste is only implemented in some regions. For this reason, a pilot scheme based on an information campaign and the location of a specific brown container for biowaste in specific zones of the city was carried out in Castelló de la Plana (Spain) over a period of six months.

The influence of soil age on ecosystem structure and function across biomes.

The importance of soil age as an ecosystem driver across biomes remains largely unresolved. By combining a cross-biome global field survey, including data for 32 soil, plant, and microbial properties in 16 soil chronosequences, with a global meta-analysis, we show that soil age is a significant ecosystem driver, but only accounts for a relatively small proportion of the cross-biome variation in multiple ecosystem properties. Parent material, climate, vegetation and topography predict, collectively, 24 times more variation in ecosystem properties than soil age alone.

Simulated nitrogen deposition influences soil greenhouse gas fluxes in a Mediterranean dryland.

Soil nitrogen (N) availability is a key driver of soil-atmosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) exchange, yet we are far from understanding how increases in N deposition due to human activities will influence the net soil-atmosphere fluxes of the three most important GHGs: nitrous oxide (NO), methane (CH) and carbon dioxide (CO). We simulated four levels of N deposition (10, 20 and 50 kg N ha yr, plus unfertilised control) to evaluate their effects on NO, CH and CO soil fluxes in a semiarid shrubland in central Spain. After 8 years of experimental fertilisation, increasing N availability led to a consistent increase in NO emissions, likely due to simultaneous increases in soil microbial nitrification and/or denitrification processes.

Multiple elements of soil biodiversity drive ecosystem functions across biomes.

The role of soil biodiversity in regulating multiple ecosystem functions is poorly understood, limiting our ability to predict how soil biodiversity loss might affect human wellbeing and ecosystem sustainability. Here, combining a global observational study with an experimental microcosm study, we provide evidence that soil biodiversity (bacteria, fungi, protists and invertebrates) is significantly and positively associated with multiple ecosystem functions. These functions include nutrient cycling, decomposition, plant production, and reduced potential for pathogenicity and belowground biological warfare.

Climatic vulnerabilities and ecological preferences of soil invertebrates across biomes.

Unlike plants and vertebrates, the ecological preferences, and potential vulnerabilities of soil invertebrates to environmental change, remain poorly understood in terrestrial ecosystems globally. We conducted a cross-biome survey including 83 locations across six continents to advance our understanding of the ecological preferences and vulnerabilities of the diversity of dominant and functionally important soil invertebrate taxa, including nematodes, arachnids and rotifers. The diversity of invertebrates was analyzed through amplicon sequencing.

Changes in belowground biodiversity during ecosystem development.

Belowground organisms play critical roles in maintaining multiple ecosystem processes, including plant productivity, decomposition, and nutrient cycling. Despite their importance, however, we have a limited understanding of how and why belowground biodiversity (bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates) may change as soils develop over centuries to millennia (pedogenesis). Moreover, it is unclear whether belowground biodiversity changes during pedogenesis are similar to the patterns observed for aboveground plant diversity.

Current distribution and characterization of the wild grapevine populations in Andalusia (Spain).

For decades, human activities have gradually destroyed the natural habitats of wild grapevine, Vitis vinifera L. subsp. sylvestris (Gmelin) Hegi, and nowadays this species is endangered in southern Europe.

Structure and functioning of dryland ecosystems in a changing world.

Understanding how drylands respond to ongoing environmental change is extremely important for global sustainability. Here we review how biotic attributes, climate, grazing pressure, land cover change and nitrogen deposition affect the functioning of drylands at multiple spatial scales. Our synthesis highlights the importance of biotic attributes (e.

Temporal dynamic of parasite-mediated linkages between the forest canopy and soil processes and the microbial community.

Parasitic plants are important drivers of community and ecosystem properties. In this study, we identify different mechanisms by which mistletoe (Viscum album subsp. austriacum) can affect soil chemical and biological properties at different temporal stages of parasitism.

Increasing aridity reduces soil microbial diversity and abundance in global drylands.

Soil bacteria and fungi play key roles in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, yet our understanding of their responses to climate change lags significantly behind that of other organisms. This gap in our understanding is particularly true for drylands, which occupy ∼41% of Earth´s surface, because no global, systematic assessments of the joint diversity of soil bacteria and fungi have been conducted in these environments to date. Here we present results from a study conducted across 80 dryland sites from all continents, except Antarctica, to assess how changes in aridity affect the composition, abundance, and diversity of soil bacteria and fungi.

Intransitive competition is widespread in plant communities and maintains their species richness.

Intransitive competition networks, those in which there is no single best competitor, may ensure species coexistence. However, their frequency and importance in maintaining diversity in real-world ecosystems remain unclear. We used two large data sets from drylands and agricultural grasslands to assess: (1) the generality of intransitive competition, (2) intransitivity-richness relationships and (3) effects of two major drivers of biodiversity loss (aridity and land-use intensification) on intransitivity and species richness.

Nitrogen supply modulates the effect of changes in drying-rewetting frequency on soil C and N cycling and greenhouse gas exchange.

Climate change and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition are two of the most important global change drivers. However, the interactions of these drivers have not been well studied. We aimed to assess how the combined effect of soil N additions and more frequent soil drying-rewetting events affects carbon (C) and N cycling, soil:atmosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) exchange, and functional microbial diversity.

Plant diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality peak at intermediate levels of woody cover in global drylands.

Aim: The global spread of woody plants into grasslands is predicted to increase over the coming century. While there is general agreement regarding the anthropogenic causes of this phenomenon, its ecological consequences are less certain. We analyzed how woody vegetation of differing cover affects plant diversity (richness and evenness) and multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality) in global drylands, and how this changes with aridity.

Factors determining waste generation in Spanish towns and cities.

This paper analyzes the generation and composition of municipal solid waste in Spanish towns and cities with more than 5000 inhabitants, which altogether account for 87% of the Spanish population. To do so, the total composition and generation of municipal solid waste fractions were obtained from 135 towns and cities. Homogeneity tests revealed heterogeneity in the proportions of municipal solid waste fractions from one city to another.

Decoupling of soil nutrient cycles as a function of aridity in global drylands.

The biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are interlinked by primary production, respiration and decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems. It has been suggested that the C, N and P cycles could become uncoupled under rapid climate change because of the different degrees of control exerted on the supply of these elements by biological and geochemical processes. Climatic controls on biogeochemical cycles are particularly relevant in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid ecosystems (drylands) because their biological activity is mainly driven by water availability.

Changes in biocrust cover drive carbon cycle responses to climate change in drylands.

Dryland ecosystems account for ca. 27% of global soil organic carbon (C) reserves, yet it is largely unknown how climate change will impact C cycling and storage in these areas. In drylands, soil C concentrates at the surface, making it particularly sensitive to the activity of organisms inhabiting the soil uppermost levels, such as communities dominated by lichens, mosses, bacteria and fungi (biocrusts).

Aridity modulates N availability in arid and semiarid Mediterranean grasslands.

While much is known about the factors that control each component of the terrestrial nitrogen (N) cycle, it is less clear how these factors affect total N availability, the sum of organic and inorganic forms potentially available to microorganisms and plants. This is particularly true for N-poor ecosystems such as drylands, which are highly sensitive to climate change and desertification processes that can lead to the loss of soil nutrients such as N. We evaluated how different climatic, abiotic, plant and nutrient related factors correlate with N availability in semiarid Stipa tenacissima grasslands along a broad aridity gradient from Spain to Tunisia.

Vascular plants mediate the effects of aridity and soil properties on ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea.

An integrated perspective of the most important factors driving the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) in natural ecosystems is lacking, especially in drylands. We evaluated how different climatic, abiotic, and nutrient-related factors determine AOA and AOB abundance in bare and vegetated microsites from grasslands throughout the Mediterranean Basin. We found a strong negative relationship between the abundance of AOA genes and soil fertility (availability of C, N, and P).

Removal of mercury bonded in residual glass from spent fluorescent lamps.

The current technologies available for recycling fluorescent lamps do not completely remove the phosphor powder attached to the surface of the glass. Consequently, the glass contains the mercury diffused through the glass matrix and the mercury deposited in the phosphor powder that has not been removed during treatment at the recycling plant. A low-cost process, with just one stage, which can be used to remove the layer of phosphor powder attached to the surface of the glass and its mercury was studied.

Analysis of collection systems for sorted household waste in Spain.

This work analyses the separate collection systems used in Spanish towns with between 5000 and 50,000 inhabitants. The study looks at the systems and their efficiency by means of the indicators fractioning rate, quality in container rate and separation rate. The results obtained are compared with those from a similar study conducted earlier that was applied to towns and cities with populations over 50,000.