Environmental soil biology
Environmental considerations are playing an increasingly important role in determining management strategies for soil and land. Many important environmental issues involve aspects of the biology of soil, and these issues cannot be considered satisfactorily in isolation from a general understanding of soil biology as a whole.
Print Book, English, 1995
Blackie Academic & Professional, London, 1995
ix, 150 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
9780751403428, 9780751403435, 0751403423, 0751403431
1342217566
1 Soil as a habitat for organisms.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 The soil environment.- 2 Life in the soil.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Microbial biomass.- 2.3 The soil inhabitants.- 2.4 Plant roots.- 2.5 Summary.- 3 Biological processes in soil.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 What do organisms require for life?.- 3.3 Selected biochemical processes.- 3.4 Soil enzymes.- 3.5 Sources of substrates for heterotrophs.- 3.6 Substrate quality.- 3.7 Microbial biomass and nutrient cycling.- 3.8 Summary.- 4 Soil formation and development.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 Pedogenesis.- 4.3 Weathering of rock.- 4.4 Organic matter.- 4.5 Profile development.- 4.6 The influence of man.- 5 Environmental issues.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Acidification.- 5.3 Salinity.- 5.4 Heavy metals.- 5.5 Chernobyl and radioactivity.- 5.6 Nitrate leaching.- 5.7 Pesticides.- 5.8 Introduced organisms.- 6 Soil biology — into the next millennium.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 Sustainability — so what’s new?.- 6.3 Environmental quality.- 6.4 Soils and global climate change.- 6.5 Biodiversity.- 6.6 Sustainable agricultural systems.- 6.7 Man and the Earth.- References and further reading.
Previous ed. published as: Soil biology, 1989