When snow blankets the landscape, it may seem like life slows down. But beneath the surface, an entire world of activity is ...

Red earthworm with roots in garden soil. Science is only beginning to understand soil-dwelling microbes — and their symbiotic relationship in plants. An entire world exists underground, inhabited by ...

Researchers discovered that microbes respire three times as much CO2 from lignin carbons compared to cellulose carbons. When soil microbes eat plant matter, the digested food follows one of two ...

Soils store more carbon than the atmosphere and vegetation combined, with soil microorganisms playing the main role. As a result, the global soil carbon cycle—by which carbon enters, moves through, ...

Globally, soils contain three times as much carbon as exists in the atmosphere and all plants, combined. Which means that understanding how soil microbes recycle organic materials—sometimes sending CO ...

URBANA, Ill. — There’s a complex world beneath our feet, teeming with diverse and interdependent life. Plants call out with chemical signals in times of stress, summoning microbes that can unlock ...

Researchers discovered that soil microbes in Kansas carry drought “memories” that affect how plants grow and survive. Native plants showed stronger responses to these microbial legacies than crops ...

As long as there is organic carbon in the soil for the microbes to break down, the fuel cell can potentially last forever." Thus, sensors like these could be very handy to farmers looking to monitor ...

In a multi-generation experiment, researchers found microbes helped plants cope with drought, but not in response to plants' cries for help. Instead, the environment itself selected for ...