This open access book synthesizes leading-edge science and management information about forest and rangeland soils of the United States. It offers ways to better understand changing conditions and their impacts on soils, and explores directions that positively affect the future of forest and rangeland soil health. This book outlines soil processes and identifies the research needed to manage forest and rangeland soils in the United States. Chapters give an overview of the state of forest and rangeland soils research in the Nation, including multi-decadal programs (chapter 1), then summarizes various human-caused and natural impacts and their effects on soil carbon, hydrology, biogeochemistry, and biological diversity (chapters 2–5). Other chapters look at the effects of changing conditions on forest soils in wetland and urban settings (chapters 6–7). Impacts include: climate change, severe wildfires, invasive species, pests and diseases, pollution, and land use change. Chapter 8 considers approaches to maintaining or regaining forest and rangeland soil health in the face of these varied impacts. Mapping, monitoring, and data sharing are discussed in chapter 9 as ways to leverage scientific and human resources to address soil health at scales from the landscape to the individual parcel (monitoring networks, data sharing Web sites, and educational soils-centered programs are tabulated in appendix B). Chapter 10 highlights opportunities for deepening our understanding of soils and for sustaining long-term ecosystem health and appendix C summarizes research needs. Nine regional summaries (appendix A) offer a more detailed look at forest and rangeland soils in the United States and its Affiliates.

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Carnivorous pitcher plants, pygmy conifers, and the Tiburon jewel flower, restricted to a small patch of serpentine soil on Tiburon Peninsula in Marin County, are just a few of California's many amazing endemic plants—species that are unique to particular locales. California boasts an abundance of endemic plants precisely because it also boasts the richest geologic diversity of any place in North America, perhaps in the world. In lively prose, Arthur Kruckeberg gives a geologic travelogue of California's unusual soils and land forms and their associated plants—including serpentines, carbonate rocks, salt marshes, salt flats, and vernal pools—demonstrating along the way how geology shapes plant life. Adding a fascinating chapter to the story of California's remarkable biodiversity, this accessible book also draws our attention to the pressing need for conservation of the state's many rare and fascinating plants and habitats. *148 outstanding, accurate photographs, more than 100 incolor, illustrate California's diverse flora *Covers a wide range of locations including the Channel Islands, the Central Valley, wetlands, bristlecone pine forests, and bogs and fens *Provides selected trip itineraries for viewing the state's geobotanical wonders *Includes information on human influences on the California landscape from the early Spanish explores through the gold rush and to the present

Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.

This book presents the basic concepts of quantitative soil science and, within this framework, it seeks to construct a new body of knowledge. There is a growing need for quantitative approach in soil science, which arises from a general demand for improved economic production and environmental management. Pedometrics can be defined as the development and application of statistical and mathematical methods applicable to data analysis problems in soil science. This book shows how pedometrics can address key soil-related questions from a quantitative point of view. It addresses four main areas which are akin to the problems of conventional pedology: (i) Understanding the pattern of soil distribution in character space – soil classification, (ii) Understanding soil spatial and temporal variation, (iii) Evaluating the utility and quality of soil and ultimately, (iv) Understanding the genesis of soil. This is the first book that address these problems in a coherent quantitate approach.

More than 1800 terms are included in this revised glossary. Subject matter includes soil physics, soil chemistry, soil biology and biochemistry, pedology, soil and water management and conservation, forest and range soils, nutrient management and soil and plant analysis, mineralogy, wetland soils, and soils and environmental quality. Two appendices on tabular information and designations for soil horizons and layers also are included.

Box 9E. 1 Continued FIGURE 2. The C–S–R triangle model (Grime 1979). The strategies at the three corners are C, competiti- winning species; S, stress-tolerating s- cies; R,ruderalspecies. Particular species can engage in any mixture of these three primary strategies, and the m- ture is described by their position within the triangle. comment briefly on some other dimensions that Grime’s (1977) triangle (Fig. 2) (see also Sects. 6. 1 are not yet so well understood. and 6. 3 of Chapter 7 on growth and allocation) is a two-dimensional scheme. A C—S axis (Com- tition-winning species to Stress-tolerating spe- Leaf Economics Spectrum cies) reflects adaptation to favorable vs. unfavorable sites for plant growth, and an R- Five traits that are coordinated across species are axis (Ruderal species) reflects adaptation to leaf mass per area (LMA), leaf life-span, leaf N disturbance. concentration, and potential photosynthesis and dark respiration on a mass basis. In the five-trait Trait-Dimensions space,79%ofallvariation worldwideliesalonga single main axis (Fig. 33 of Chapter 2A on photo- A recent trend in plant strategy thinking has synthesis; Wright et al. 2004). Species with low been trait-dimensions, that is, spectra of varia- LMA tend to have short leaf life-spans, high leaf tion with respect to measurable traits. Compared nutrient concentrations, and high potential rates of mass-based photosynthesis. These species with category schemes, such as Raunkiaer’s, trait occur at the ‘‘quick-return’’ end of the leaf e- dimensions have the merit of capturing cont- nomics spectrum.