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Elsevier

Books in Soil science

The Soil Science collection provides comprehensive coverage of soil chemistry, physics, microbiology, fertility, and land management. Featuring innovative research and practical applications, these resources assist soil scientists, agronomists, and researchers in promoting sustainable land use, soil health, and environmental protection. Emphasizing nutrient cycling, contamination remediation, and climate change impacts, the portfolio offers actionable insights for sustainable agriculture and ecosystem management.

  • Environmental Soil Chemistry

    • 1st Edition
    • Donald L. Sparks
    • English
    As the author states in his Preface, this book is written at a time when scientific and lay communities recognize that knowledge of environmental chemistry is fundamental in understanding and predicting the fate of pollutants in soils and waters, and in making sound decisions about remediation of contaminated soils. Environmental Soil Chemistry presents the fundamental concepts of soil science and applies them to environmentally significant reactions in soil. Clearly and concisely written for undergraduate and beginning graduate students of soil science, the book is likewise accessible to all students and professionals of environmental engineering and science. Chapters cover background information useful to students new to the discipline, including the chemistry of inorganic and organic soil components, soilacidity and salinity, and ion exchange and redox phenomena. However, discussion also extends to sorption/desorption, oxidation-reduction of metals and organic chemicals, rates of pollutant reactions as well as technologies for remediating contaminated soils. Supplementary reading lists, sample problems, and extensive tables and figures make this textbook accessible to readers.

  • Soil disinfestation

    • 1st Edition
    • D Mulder
    • English
    Soil Disinfestation considers the effectiveness and necessity of soil disinfestation, while exposing the dangers of various treatments and the ways to overcome them. The book serves as a collection of heterogeneous articles written by a number of research workers in the field of soil science and microbial ecology. The book is divided into five sections and comprised of 15 chapters that cover the general aspects of standard, physical, chemical, and biological soil disinfestation and the fate of pesticides in the soil. The book discusses the causes and consequences of soil contamination and detection methods. The factors that influence the efficacy of each treatment and the practical application of commonly used pesticides, such as fumigants and fungicides, are also explained in this reference. Some of the contributors also give a critical retrospect about the subjects with speculation about the trends in soil disinfestation. Microbiologists and research workers in soil science, as well as students and novices in microbiology, pedology, and microbial ecology, will find this book invaluable for their practice and learning.

  • Windbreak Technology

    • 1st Edition
    • J.R. Brandle + 2 more
    • English
    This book contains a selection of papers presented at the first International Symposium on Windbreak Technology, summarising the available worldwide literature on windbreaks and the response, both positive and negative, to wind protection. State-of-the-art information is presented on general design criteria, and principles of planting and establishment for a wide range of conditions and objectives. It provides descriptive information of tree and shrub species for arid, semi-arid, temperate and tropical areas, and their use in windbreaks.

  • Interactions Between Non-Pathogenic Soil Microorganisms And Plants

    • 1st Edition
    • Y.R. Dommergues
    • English
    Interactions between Non-Pathogenic Soil Microorganisms and Plants provides a comprehensive discussion of the non-pathogenic microorganisms associated with roots. It describes how a myriad of soil microorganisms affect plant growth, and how climatic and edaphic conditions contribute to the magnitude of microbial activity. The book is divided into 11 chapters that cover the plant-microorganism system; growth, structure, and physiology of roots; and nutrient uptake. It also explains the root exudates and exudation; energy flow in the plant; and rhizosphere. Legume symbiosis and root nodule symbioses in non-leguminous nitrogen fixing plants are also discussed. Moreover, the book explains the mycorrhizae and the impact of climatic and edaphic conditions on soil management and plant growth. The information that the book presents serves as a useful focal point for further studies on the interactions between plants and soil microorganisms. Thus, it provides an impetus for the development of agricultural practices that could improve food production, while mitigating anthropogenic pollution of agrosytems and waste of energy resources. Students, lecturers, and research workers in plant physiology and anatomy, microbiology, soil science, general ecology, and agronomy will find this book an invaluable reference for their learning and practice.

  • Soil Microbial Associations

    Control of Structures and Functions
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 17
    • V. Vancura + 1 more
    • English
    This volume is the first publication of its kind to provide a fully comprehensive and detailed approach to the survey of microbial associations in soil: their structure and function in relation to soil fertility and environment protection. The problems covered by this title are presented on various levels of the ecological system; from subcellular phenomena occurring in the microbial cell (genetic and enzyme regulation), to processes taking place in the flow of mass and energy in the agroecosystem. The aim of this monograph is to contribute to the understanding of the laws of formation and function of microbial associations in natural and agricultural soils, and to build a scientific basis for the control of soil biological processes. Using a contemporary approach to some fields of soil microbiology, the book highlights the possibility of utilizing certain microorganisms and microbial processes to increase soil fertility and protect the environment. These critically evaluated and selected results were obtained at the Institute of Microbiology and the Institute of Experimental Phytotechnics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with the Institute of Microbiology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

  • Cycling of Mineral Nutrients in Agricultural Ecosystems

    • 1st Edition
    • M Frissel
    • English
    Cycling of Mineral Nutrients in Agricultural Ecosystems contains the papers presented in the first international environmental symposium of the Royal Netherlands Land Development Society held at Amsterdam on 1976. The symposium is cosponsored by the International Association for Ecology and Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company. This compilation reflects the exchange of information and ideas by specialists and participants of the symposium. The book is comprised of nine chapters, which cover the following concepts of nutrient cycling in agricultural ecosystems: principles and control of nutrient cycling; description and classification of agro-ecosystems; nutrient cycling data from different countries; and general discussion on nutrient balances, changes in soil pools, manipulations, and future researches. This book also offers potential background and perspectives for further studies on nutrient cycling in agro-ecosystems, presenting a view on what directions future research should take. This volume will be an invaluable reference source for environmental science students and professionals. Research workers in agriculture and other environmental disciplines will also find this book useful.

  • The Soil Mites of the World

    Vol. 1: Primitive Oribatids of the Palaearctic Region
    • 1st Edition
    • J. Balogh + 1 more
    • English
    Soil mites are of great biological importance both in natural and in cultivated soils. Recently much attention has been paid to them especially because of their sensitivity to a number of chemicals used in agriculture. Of the soil mites, the Oribatids represent the largest number of both individuals and species. Unfortunately, the study of Oribatids has been greatly hampered by the lack of modern reference works from which they can be identified, and it was this great lack that stimulated the authors to launch this new series of books.The first volume, after a short morphological treatment, gives the method of collection, preparation, and mode of study of prepared specimens. The work is designed to discuss critically all recognizable species and is amply complemented with differential diagnoses and entirely new figures from supercohorts down to species. The book also includes an index of taxa.

  • Shrub-Steppe

    Balance and Change in a Semi-Arid Terrestrial Ecosystem
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 20
    • Alec Rickard + 3 more
    • English
    Owing to man-made intervention, the shrub-steppe now represents a rapidly disappearing landscape in the arid regions of North America. This book represents a systems-level study of ecological variables affecting water balance, and responses to perturbation. The study focused on a very large, protected, landscape unit, comprising a natural ``watershed'' area located in the semi-arid western United States. Long-term and concurrent data sets were established with a view towards establishing system-level responses to manipulative interventions, and natural perturbations like wildfire. These data sets were established for micrometeorology, climatology, mineral cycling in soils, nutrient and mineral pathways in springs and streams, vegetational dynamics, and population changes on the site. In synthesizing nearly twenty years of data, the more interesting ecosystem level responses concerned vegetational recovery and water balance. For instance, the synthesis uniquely demonstrates the interaction of biotic and non-biotic factors and their integrated effect on regional water balance. However, special attention was also paid to species diversity and the genetic resource pool represented at this site.This book will be of primary interest as a reference resource to land managers and wildlife specialists, and as a research study for scientists interested in systems-level ecology. Conservation-minded citizens who take more than a cursory interest in ecology will also find it interesting.

  • The Soil Mites of the World

    Vol. 3: Oribatid Mites of the Neotropical Region II
    • 1st Edition
    • P. Balogh + 1 more
    • English
    Distributed in the East European countries, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, People's Republic of Mongolia, Republic of Cuba and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam by Kultura, Budapest, HungaryThis volume presents the second part of brief characterizations and identification keys for oribatid mites inhabiting the Neotropical Region, as well as a check-list and bibliography of all described species from this area.This work is destined to become a basic handbook that will serve academic and applied science/taxonomists, field workers, ecologists, etc., for years to come. It will also aid the work of Latin American oribatologists. This volume is primarily intended for use by taxonomists in acarology, ecologists of neotropical soils and veterinary parasitologists.

  • Ecology of Root Pathogens

    • 1st Edition
    • S.V. Krupa
    • English
    Ecology of Root Pathogens discusses the significance of fungi infecting the roots, and emphasizes the significant diseases of roots and their symptoms. This book also names the genera and species of fungi that cause diseases of roots, and classifies and characterizes the root and pathogen interaction in soil. The book describes the behavior of plant pathogenic bacteria, such as Agrobacterium, Corynebacterium, Xanthomonas, Pseudomonas, Erwinia, and Streptomyces. It also explores how plants and plant-produced stimuli affect the associated population of plant parasitic nematodes and how these plant parasitic nematodes affect higher plants in certain ways. In addition, this book discusses the morphology, classification, nomenclature, multiplication and translocation of viruses infecting the plants. It also describes the symptoms of the virus infection in roots. The book includes a discussion on the fundamentals of biological control, which include the pathosystem concept, the behavior of the soil microflora in the soil, the reservoirs for infection, the processes of pathogen decline, and the integrated effects on the decline of the pathogen. This discussion on biological control also presents the natural and artificially induced biological control. This book will be of great value to soil microbiologists and plant pathologists.

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