There is a limited understanding of the importance of abiotic factors in regulating biodiversity and structure of many functionally important soil microbial communities. In this paper we presented a molecular characterisation of archaeal and bacterial communities, exposed to long-term change in soil abiotic environment at natural CO2 springs (mofettes), using T-RFLP profiling and examination of 16S rRNA clone libraries. Our results show major shifts in archaeal and bacterial communities towards anaerobic and methanogenic taxa dominating in CO2 rich hypoxic soils with a significant increase in abundance of Methanomicrobia and predominantly anaerobic Chloroflexi and Firmicutes. O2 concentration in soil was consistently shown to be the strongest predictor of the compositional changes across both the archaeal and bacterial communities. However, soil pH and total N, were most important in separating the archaeal communities in transition and control zones, but not the bacterial communities. We concluded that geological CO2 induced hypoxia in mofette systems can cause major shifts in community composition of soil microbes that can generate significant implications for ecosystem functioning (e.g.nutrient cycling and CH4 production). Our data indicate that mofettes offer a good model system for studying the response of natural microbial communities to long-term environmental changes, which is urgently needed to address the bias towards acroorganisms in soil biodiversity research.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7763321
In this paper, several years of net carbon and water vapour exchange measurements were evaluated for a specific agroecosystem (abandoned karst grassland partially overgrown by woody plants). The measurements were carried out using the eddy covariance method. We found that on average the investigated ecosystem is a moderately large carbon sink with presumably majority of the carbon sequestered being stored in wood biomass and only a minor part in the soil organic matter. During the years studied, there were relatively large differences in yearly sink and in intra-annual dynamics. Using some ancillary measurements this variability was attributed primarily to the occurrence of summer drought when the assimilation was strongly reduced or the ecosystem even turned into carbon source. We calculated the critical availability of soil water at which the ecosystem assimilation and transpiration stopped, and on this basis we objectively determined physiological drought periods. We established a link between the duration of the longest drought period in the year and the estimated annual gross primary production of the ecosystem. We also studied the autumn recovery of the ecosystem assimilation, which followed the rainy periods.
COBISS.SI-ID: 8350329
We assessed differences among major research fields in Scopus and WoS based on a standardized classification of fields, on an example of an entire country (Slovenia). We analyzed all documents and citations received by authors who were engaged in research between 1996 and 2011 (50,000 unique documents by 10,000 researchers). Documents were linked to Scopus and WoS using complex algorithms in the Slovenian Cobiss bibliographic system and SICRIS research system. Subject areas or research fields of all documents were harmonized by the Frascati/OECD classification, thus offsetting limitations of both citation databases. Scopus leads over WoS in documents as well as citations in all research fields. This is especially evident in Social sciences, Humanities, and Engineering & Technology. Most citations per document were received in Medical and Natural sciences, which exhibit similar counts. Agriculture is found in the middle. The established differences between databases and research fields provide the Slovenian research agency (ARRS) with additional criteria for the purposes of a more balanced evaluation of research outcomes according to research fields.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7744633
Hydropower plants on the lower river Sava, Slovenia, were developed without sealing the underground upstream. As a consequence the agricultural land on the river banks would be inundated because of the water-table increase of the river. To remedy this, the fields were elevated and recultivated. Mixing of topsoil with the second horizon during removal and during backfill with filling material resulted in uneven soil fertility. Driving on the refilled second layer with heavy machinery caused soil compaction in the Middle Pijavsko in spite of favorable soil texture. Recultivation measures restored the agricultural land almost to the production potential prior to power plant construction. Immediate intensive land use (corn) showed less favourable effect on soil characteristics.
COBISS.SI-ID: 8283257
The Meza Valley, Slovenia, has been contaminated by Pb smelting, resulting in an epidemic of lead poisoning in childhood. The potential of remediation with EDTA soil washing to mitigate the risk from Pb poisoning was investigated by applying the Integrated Exposure Uptake Bio-Kinetic (IEUBK) model verified with data on actual Pb blood levels in children. The IEUBK model predicted that, after soil remediation, the number of locations at which the expected Pb blood level in children was higher than the stipulated 100 µg L-1 would decrease by 90, 38 and 91% in the towns of Mezica, Zerjav and Crna, respectively. This was the first report on using IEUBK for prediction of soil remediation efficiency.
COBISS.SI-ID: 8180601
Current inavailability of sustainable, soil preserving remediation method is the main obstacle in cleaning up of toxic metal contaminated land. Novel reaction of alkaline substitution of toxic metals in EDTA chelate and alkaline precipitation and adsorption of released toxic metals on polysaccharides, coupled to acidic precipitation of EDTA was used to develop a novel, soil-sustainable method for remediation of toxic metals contaminated soils. Novel technology was demonstrated in a pilot scale using calcareous soil from Meza Valley in Slovenia, and acidic soils from Arnoldstein, Austria and Pribram Czech Republic.
COBISS.SI-ID: 8802681
Nitrogen cycling is a key process in a soil ecosystem, although our understanding of how microbial communities driving this cycle respond to disturbances, such as drought, is still limited. In this study, we investigated how the abundance of total bacterial, crenarchaeal and fungal communities and genes genes encoding catalytic enzymes of nitrifiers (archaeal and bacterial amoA) and denitrifiers (nirS, nirK, nosZI, nosZII) responded to a severe agricultural drought event in a long-term experiment of minimum tillage and conventional ploughing. Drought, defined as a reduction of soil water content (WHC 76-13%) and increased soil temperature (17–30?°C at 5 cm soil depth), significantly decreased the abundance of all the studied microbial communities. We found that the abundance of most studied microbial communities decreased by about 2% when WC decreases by 1 mass % and by about 10% when T increases by 1?°C. Regardless of the weather conditions during our study, the abundances of all communities were greater in the topsoil of minimum than plough tillage. However, under both tillage systems, all studied microbial communities reached their initial abundance 3 weeks after the end of drought, which suggests a high resilience. Our study was the first to the best of our knowledge to quantify differences in the response of nitrifier and denitrifier communities under different tillage regimes to a severe agricultural drought event. Greater efforts are needed for understanding how agricultural practices can modulate the response of key functional microbial communities to climate change.
COBISS.SI-ID: 8956537
Soils provide many ecosystem services that are ultimately dependent on the local diversity and belowground abundance of organisms. Soil biodiversity is affected negatively by many threats and there is a perceived policy requirement for the effective biological monitoring of soils at the European level. The aim of this study was to evaluate and recommend policy relevant, cost-effective soil biological indicators for biodiversity and ecosystem function across Europe. A total of 18 potential indicators were selected using a logical-sieve based approach. The indicators assessed a range of microbial, faunal and functional attributes, newer nucleic acids based techniques, morphological approaches and process based measurements. They were tested at 6 European experimental sites already in operation and chosen according to land-use, climatic zone and differences in land management intensity. A breakdown of the cost effectiveness of the indicators showed the expected trade-off between effort required in the field and effort required in the laboratory. All the indicators were able to differentiate between the sites but, as no single indicator was sensitive to all the differences in land use intensity, we suggest that an indicator programme should be based upon a suite of different indicators. For monitoring under the European climatic zones and land uses of this study, indicators for ecosystem functions related to the services of water regulation, C-sequestration and nutrient provision would include a minimum suite of: earthworms; functional genes; and bait lamina. However, for effective monitoring of biodiversity all taxonomic groups would need to be addressed.
COBISS.SI-ID: 8427129
Geological storage of CO2 is one of the possibilities that could contribute to reducing CO2 release into the atmosphere. In our research, we studied the possibilities of adsorption of CO2 in various geological materials (claystone, siltstone, sandstone, marl, clay, limestone and amphibolite) with the gravimetric method. We also studied the possibility of adsorption CO2 in fresh and salt water. We carried out the experiments at temperature 22°C and pressures from 0 to 40 bar. We compared the results with other studies that had investigated the adsorption of CO2 in coal. We found that the most CO2 could be adsorbed with sandstone, namely up to 10.9 m3 CO2 per t of material. Using the same measuring technique, the rocks that we used in our research showed a lower affinity to the adsorption of CO2 than coal in past research. In the sample of saltwater, 27.5 m3 CO2/t of water was adsorbed and in the sample of freshwater, 17.6 m3 CO2/t of water. Carbon capture and storage is one of the possible methods for reducing global warming. Different geological materials have shown different affinities for CO2 permeability in their interior. The research we have carried out is a fundamental research in the field of adsorption capabilities of various geological materials, which has been so far rarely researched in Slovenia and the rest of the world. The results are the basis for further research that should be carried out in the future so that CCS (Carbon capture and storage) technologies can become usable and ready for wider use.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7007097
While urban growth contributes to the biodiversity crisis, biodiverse greenspaces within cities could support both human wellbeing and biodiversity conservation. Yet, urban greenspaces are under pressure due to the rapid densification of cities worldwide. Urban conservation policies thus need broad support, ideally from people with different sociocultural backgrounds. Whether urban residents prefer biodiverse over simply green spaces, however, largely remains an open question. We tested how diverse respondents (N=3716) from five European cities valued three levels of biodiversity (plant species richness) in four ubiquitous greenspace types. Our field survey revealed that biodiversity matters: People largely prefer higher plant species richness in urban greenspaces (i.e., parks, wastelands, streetscapes) and agree that higher plant species richness allows for more liveable cities. Despite variation across European cities, positive valuations of high plant species richness prevailed among different sociocultural groups, including people of migrant background. The results of this study can thus support policies on a biodiversity-friendly development and management of urban greenspaces by highlighting social arguments for integrating biodiversity into urban development plans.
COBISS.SI-ID: 8934777