Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

This paper describes the technical development and accuracy assessment of the most recent and improved version of the SoilGrids system at 250m resolution (June 2016 update). SoilGrids provides global predictions for standard numeric soil properties (organic carbon, bulk density, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC), pH, soil texture fractions and coarse fragments) at seven standard depths (0, 5, 15, 30, 60, 100 and 200 cm), in addition to predictions of depth to bedrock and distribution of soil classes based on the World Reference Base (WRB) and USDA classification systems (ca. 280 raster layers in total). Predictions were based on ca. 150,000 soil profiles used for training and a stack of 158 remote sensing-based soil covariates (primarily derived from MODIS land products, SRTM DEM derivatives, climatic images and global landform and lithology maps), which were used to fit an ensemble of machine learning methods-random forest and gradient boosting and/or multinomial logistic regression-as implemented in the R packages ranger, xgboost, nnet and caret. The results of 10-fold cross-validation show that the ensemble models explain between 56% (coarse fragments) and 83% (pH) of variation with an overall average of 61%. Improvements in the relative accuracy considering the amount of variation explained, in comparison to the previous version of SoilGrids at 1 km spatial resolution, range from 60 to 230%. Improvements can be attributed to: (1) the use of machine learning instead of linear regression, (2) to considerable investments in preparing finer resolution covariate layers and (3) to insertion of additional soil profiles. Further development of SoilGrids could include refinement of methods to incorporate input uncertainties and derivation of posterior probability distributions (per pixel), and further automation of spatial modeling so that soil maps can be generated for potentially hundreds of soil variables. Another area of future research is the development of methods for multiscale merging of SoilGrids predictions with local and/or national gridded soil products (e.g. up to 50 m spatial resolution) so that increasingly more accurate, complete and consistent global soil information can be produced. SoilGrids are available under the Open Data Base License.

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SoilGrids250m: Global gridded soil information based on machine learning

▪ Abstract Estimates of global wetland area range from 5.3 to 12.8 million km2. About half the global wetland area has been lost, but an international treaty (the 1971 Ramsar Convention) has helped 144 nations protect the most significant remaining wetlands. Because most nations lack wetland inventories, changes in the quantity and quality of the world's wetlands cannot be tracked adequately. Despite the likelihood that remaining wetlands occupy less than 9% of the earth's land area, they contribute more to annually renewable ecosystem services than their small area implies. Biodiversity support, water quality improvement, flood abatement, and carbon sequestration are key functions that are impaired when wetlands are lost or degraded. Restoration techniques are improving, although the recovery of lost biodiversity is challenged by invasive species, which thrive under disturbance and displace natives. Not all damages to wetlands are reversible, but it is not always clear how much can be retained through re...

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Wetland resources : Status, trends, ecosystem services, and restorability

. The carbon burial in vegetated sediments, ignored in past assessments of carbon burial in the ocean, was evaluated using a bottom-up approach derived from upscaling a compilation of published individual estimates of carbon burial in vegetated habitats (seagrass meadows, salt marshes and mangrove forests) to the global level and a top-down approach derived from considerations of global sediment balance and a compilation of the organic carbon content of vegeatated sediments. Up-scaling of individual burial estimates values yielded a total carbon burial in vegetated habitats of 111 Tmol C y-1. The total burial in unvegetated sediments was estimated to be 126 Tg C y-1, resulting in a bottom-up estimate of total burial in the ocean of about 244 Tg C y-1, two-fold higher than estimates of oceanic carbon burial that presently enter global carbon budgets. The organic carbon concentrations in vegetated marine sediments exceeds by 2 to 10-fold those in shelf/deltaic sediments. Top-down recalculation of ocean sediment budgets to account for these, previously neglected, organic-rich sediments, yields a top-down carbon burial estimate of 216 Tg C y-1, with vegetated coastal habitats contributing about 50%. Even though vegetated carbon burial contributes about half of the total carbon burial in the ocean, burial represents a small fraction of the net production of these ecosystems, estimated at about 3388 Tg C y-1, suggesting that bulk of the benthic net ecosystem production must support excess respiration in other compartments, such as unvegetated sediments and the coastal pelagic compartment. The total excess organic carbon available to be exported to the ocean is estimated at between 1126 to 3534 Tg C y-1, the bulk of which must be respired in the open ocean. Widespread loss of vegetated coastal habitats must have reduced carbon burial in the ocean by about 30 Tg C y-1, identifying the destruction of these ecosystems as an important loss of CO2 sink capacity in the biosphere.

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Major role of marine vegetation on the oceanic carbon cycle

. In this forum paper we discuss how soil scientists can help to reach the recently adopted UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the most effective manner. Soil science, as a land-related discipline, has important links to several of the SDGs, which are demonstrated through the functions of soils and the ecosystem services that are linked to those functions (see graphical abstract in the Supplement). We explore and discuss how soil scientists can rise to the challenge both internally, in terms of our procedures and practices, and externally, in terms of our relations with colleague scientists in other disciplines, diverse groups of stakeholders and the policy arena. To meet these goals we recommend the following steps to be taken by the soil science community as a whole: (i) embrace the UN SDGs, as they provide a platform that allows soil science to demonstrate its relevance for realizing a sustainable society by 2030; (ii) show the specific value of soil science: research should explicitly show how using modern soil information can improve the results of inter- and transdisciplinary studies on SDGs related to food security, water scarcity, climate change, biodiversity loss and health threats; (iii) take leadership in overarching system analysis of ecosystems, as soils and soil scientists have an integrated nature and this places soil scientists in a unique position; (iii) raise awareness of soil organic matter as a key attribute of soils to illustrate its importance for soil functions and ecosystem services; (iv) improve the transfer of knowledge through knowledge brokers with a soil background; (v) start at the basis: educational programmes are needed at all levels, starting in primary schools, and emphasizing practical, down-to-earth examples; (vi) facilitate communication with the policy arena by framing research in terms that resonate with politicians in terms of the policy cycle or by considering drivers, pressures and responses affecting impacts of land use change; and finally (vii) all this is only possible if researchers, with soil scientists in the front lines, look over the hedge towards other disciplines, to the world at large and to the policy arena, reaching over to listen first, as a basis for genuine collaboration.

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The significance of soils and soil science towards realization of the United Nations sustainable development goals

Soil Maps as a Tool in Mapping Poorly Preserved Landforms: A Case Study in Grand Forks County, North Dakota

Knowledge of clay minerals composition can be used to understand paleoenvironmental and/or paleoclimatic conditions, particularly for soils derived from volcanic parent materials that were subjected to diverse climatic conditions during pedogenesis. In this study, the clay minerals composition in soils developed from basaltic parent materials during the Cenozoic (mostly during the Early Miocene to Early Pleistocene) in the harrats region of the Arabian Shield in Saudi Arabia were investigated. Forty-seven clay samples were examined using selective dissolution analyses, X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR/FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to obtain a better understanding of the clay minerals developed in basaltic parent materials, particularly under a dry-hot environment. The XRD results revealed that the clay mineralogy was dominated by smectite, kaolin (kaolinite/halloysite), and interstratified vermiculite–chlorite (Vm–Ch), with mica, pseudo-chlorite, palygorskite, and Ca–zeolites as minor components. The TEM provided strong evidence for the presence of allophane and imogolite, which is in line with numerous previous studies on soils formed from basaltic parent materials. The existence of poorly-crystalline minerals in these soils was strongly supported by the selective dissolution analysis results. The combined influence of paleoclimates and parent material is evidenced in the clay minerals in the studied soils. The formation of smectite, Vm–Ch, and chlorite minerals in the harrats soils could be attributed to the simultaneous effect of temperate paleoclimates that dominated the Pliocene and the wet transition periods that occurred through the Pleistocene into the mid-Holocene, while the minor palygorskite and Ca–zeolites could be related to the dry conditions that started in the late-Holocene and persist to the present day. Additional studies regarding the clay mineral assemblages in similar geoenvironmental settings are highly recommend and should account for paleoclimatic conditions to provide a better understanding of the relationship between clay minerals and paleoclimates.

Investigation of the clay minerals composition of soils derived from basalt parent materials in the Early Miocene to Early Pleistocene on the Arabian Shield using multiple techniques: implications for paleoclimatic conditions

History of soils in relation to animal and human health

The early 1900s were a time of rapid growth in American soil science. Edward Elway Free is not well known but produced some excellent work during this time. Free majored in chemistry at Cornell University and graduated in 1906. He worked as a chemist with the University of Arizona from 1906-1907, as a physical scientist with the Bureau of Soils from 1907-1912, and as a private consultant in chemistry and physics after 1912. In 1917 Free earned a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He continued to run his consulting company until his death on 24 Nov. 1939. Publication trends over Free's career include publications in chemistry (1908-1910), eolian processes and soil physics (1909-1912), and economic resources (1912-1917). After 1917 his agriculturally related publications were in soil aeration and weather and climate.

Eric C. Brevik

Papers

Soil Maps as a Tool in Mapping Poorly Preserved Landforms: A Case Study in Grand Forks County, North Dakota

Investigation of the clay minerals composition of soils derived from basalt parent materials in the Early Miocene to Early Pleistocene on the Arabian Shield using multiple techniques: implications for paleoclimatic conditions

History of soils in relation to animal and human health

Contributions of Edward Elway Free to American Soil Science in the Early 1900s

Evaluation of Loss On Ignition Method for Determining Organic Matter of South Georgia Soils