Publications by authors named "Sarah Duddigan"
The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe believe that correcting for leaching in (terrestrial) litterbags studies such as the Tea Bag Index will result in more uncertainties than it resolves. This is mainly because leaching occurs in pulses upon changes in the environment and because leached material can still be mineralized after leaching. Furthermore, amount of material that potentially leaches from tea is comparable to other litter types.
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- Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) in Andhra Pradesh aims to enhance food security and environmental sustainability, but lacks robust statistical data comparing its yields to organic and conventional farming.* -
- Field experiments across 28 farms revealed that ZBNF yielded significantly more than both organic and conventional methods, particularly due to benefits from mulching that improved soil moisture and earthworm populations.* -
- While ZBNF shows promise, its effectiveness varies by district and crop type, and there were negligible differences in nutrient content compared to conventional farming, highlighting the potential risks of synthetic farming practices.*
Application of organic soil amendments is commonplace in horticulture to improve soil fertility. Whether this practice can also augment the soil carbon (C) pool has been of increasing interest in recent years. We used a controlled field experiment that has received annual applications of six different horticultural soil amendments for seven consecutive years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA decline in soil biodiversity is generally considered to be the reduction of forms of life living in soils, both in terms of quantity and variety. Where soil biodiversity decline occurs, it can significantly affect the soils' ability to function, respond to perturbations and recover from a disturbance. Several soil threats have been identified as having negative effects on soil biodiversity, including human intensive exploitation, land-use change and soil organic matter decline.
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