Pastures and Climate Extremes: Impacts of Cool Season Warming and Drought on the Productivity of Key Pasture Species in a Field Experiment.

Shifts in the timing, intensity and/or frequency of climate extremes, such as severe drought and heatwaves, can generate sustained shifts in ecosystem function with important ecological and economic impacts for rangelands and managed pastures. The Pastures and Climate Extremes experiment (PACE) in Southeast Australia was designed to investigate the impacts of a severe winter/spring drought (60% rainfall reduction) and, for a subset of species, a factorial combination of drought and elevated temperature (ambient +3°C) on pasture productivity. The experiment included nine common pasture and Australian rangeland species from three plant functional groups (C grasses, C grasses and legumes) planted in monoculture.

Ecological stoichiometry and fungal community turnover reveal variation among mycorrhizal partners in their responses to warming and drought.

Symbiotic fungi mediate important energy and nutrient transfers in terrestrial ecosystems. Environmental change can lead to shifts in communities of symbiotic fungi, but the consequences of these shifts for nutrient dynamics among symbiotic partners are poorly understood. Here, we assessed variation in carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in tissues of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and a host plant (Medicago sativa) in response to experimental warming and drought.

Long-Term Effects of Crude Oil Spillage on Selected Physicochemical Properties Including Heavy Metal Contents of Sandy Tropical Soil.

Crude oil spillage effects on the environment often wane with time, making late remediation of affected soils look irrelevant. Physicochemical quality of a sandy soil under 9-year-old spillage was compared with that of adjacent unaffected site in southern Nigeria. Soil bulk density and equilibrated water content were higher in affected than unaffected site, but permeability did not change.