Volume 45, 2021

ABSTRACT South America covers a vast area with diverse climates and landscapes, with high participation in the global production of food and fibers. It is crucial to understand the risks, vulnerabilities, and opportunities that climate change brings to this region. We analyzed the increasing tension between agribusiness models and smallholder models, the risks, opportunities, and main adaptation measures that can be adopted in the agricultural sector of the South American countries facing climate change. This study is a review of […]

ABSTRACT Leaf-cutting ants are the most important herbivore in the neotropics, represent active agents of pedobioturbation, and are regarded as ecosystem engineers. These ants have a wide variety of ecological functions, such as pollination, seed dispersal, and tree-growing control. Despite this importance, little is known on their distribution in relation to possible soil and environmental conditions that affect Atta ants occurrence. This study aimed to spatialize the main occurrences of Atta species in the Brazilian territory and evaluate the main […]

ABSTRACT: It remains unclear whether temperature and precipitation exert independent control on tropical vegetation and soil C pools. Likewise, it is unknown whether the feedbacks of tropical C pools to climate constraints vary with nutrient availability. These aspects are critical to improving our ability to predict the response of tropical C pools to climate dynamics. This review aimed to assess climate data and the spatial distribution of vegetation and soil C pools across the Brazilian territory to investigate i) whether […]

ABSTRACT Multitemporal collections of satellite images and their products have recently been explored in digital soil mapping. This study aimed to produce a bare soil image (BSI) for the São Paulo State (Brazil) to perform a pedometric analysis for different geographical levels. First, we assessed the potential of the BSI for predicting the surface (0.00-0.20 m) and subsurface (0.80-1.00 m) clay, iron oxides (Fe 2 O 3 ), aluminum (m%) and bases saturation (V%) contents at the state level, which […]

ABSTRACT Soil maps provide a method for graphically communicating what is known about the spatial distribution of soil properties in nature. We proposed an optimized pipeline, named dino-soil toolbox, programmed in the R software for mapping quantitative and categorical properties of legacy soil data. The pipeline, composed of four main modules (data preprocessing, covariates selection, exploratory data analysis and modeling), was tested across a study area of 14,537 km 2 located between the departments of Cesar and Magdalena, Colombia. We […]

ABSTRACT This review presents the basic research and some applications of the gamma-ray attenuation, neutron gauges, and 137Cs fallout techniques for studying soil physical processes and properties. The selected studies aimed to give the readers a general idea of the use of these nuclear techniques carried out by Brazilian researchers in the past decades. It is expected to assist future researchers by identifying knowledge gaps and opportunities for applying the methods presented here. Around 100 studies were selected for this […]

ABSTRACT: Soil Fertility is one of the most relevant fields of Soil Science related to agricultural production, especially in tropical and subtropical environments, due to the prevalence of weathered and naturally unproductive soils. However, indicators of Soil Fertility currently used do not represent what actual happens in the soil; once must be understood as a process. The wisdom of this importance occurred in Antiquity and evolved until the mid-19th century, when the mineralist concept was proposed, which is still dominant […]

ABSTRACT: The Cerrado (Brazilian savannah) is a biome of great socio-economic and environmental importance to Brazil. The rapid agricultural expansion in the Cerrado biome areas promoted biogeochemical cycles that affect nitrogen and carbon dynamics, leading to increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In Brazil, nitrous oxide (N2O) is the main gas in agriculture, and agricultural practices increase emissions into the atmosphere. This review aimed to assess the influence of agriculture on N2O emissions in the Cerrado region, based on existing data […]

ABSTRACT: No-tillage (NT) has been one of the main advances related to soil management in Brazilian agriculture in the last 30 years. However, its full adoption in lowland areas that are traditionally cultivated with flooded rice is still incipient (<5 %). The main reasons are associated with the soil hydromorphic condition and the management of highly recalcitrant residual crop biomass, demanding soil disturbance even occasionally. This review presents a historical survey about the soil management systems utilized in lowland areas […]

ABSTRACT: The soil particles can be gathered through physical and/or chemical processes in association with the biological activity, leading to the formation of aggregates. Soil aggregates has several functions in the soil, increasing macroporosity and water circulation – consequently reducing soil erosion and mechanical resistance to root growth, contributing to greater fixation of plants to the soil and absorption of water and nutrients, and protection of intra-aggregate organic matter. The aggregates were initially classified morphologically and in terms of their […]