Recent Stories
- Unborn babies 'practise' facial expressions in the womb
- Lancaster leads the way in cyber security bursary scheme
- Physicists gain insight into the UK's biggest killer
- Engineering students make finals of national start-up business competition
- Social media plagued by privacy problems, say researchers
- Lancaster Environment Centre conducts roadside pollution research for BBC
- Lancaster set to receive funding boost to stimulate UK's economy
- Billion-year-old water could hold clues to life on Earth and Mars
- How do we find out about cyber criminals?
- First, carbon footprints... now you can calculate your 'nitrogen footprint'
Haymeadows are good for the environment say researchers
Story supplied by LU Press Office
Lancaster Enviroment Centre's Dr Franciska de Vries collects soil samples
Traditional haymeadows are much better at supporting biodiversity and preventing water pollution than intensively farmed fields according to research from Lancaster Environment Centre.
This is because haymeadows lose five times less nitrogen from the soil, which is needed for plant growth. However, nitrogen becomes a pollutant if it leaches into rivers and contaminates the water supply.
The research was based on an analysis of 22 fields in the Yorkshire Dales and published in PLOS ONE under the title Extensive management promotes plant and microbial nitrogen retention in temperate grassland by Franciska de Vries, Helen Quirk, Carly Stevens, and Richard Bardgett from Lancaster Environment Centre, Jaap Bloem from Alterra, Wageningen University and Research Centre in The Netherlands and Roland Bol from Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany.
Lead researcher Dr Franciska de Vries of the Lancaster Environment Centre said: "Nitrogen that leaches from the soil with drainage water forms a threat for water quality and high levels in drinking water can threaten human health. It can also reduce species diversity in rivers and grasslands."
The researchers took a total of 162 intact columns of soil as part of a large scale field-observation and glasshouse experiment over several months.
Dr de Vries said: "We watered the columns of soil and measured how much leached out. We also looked at the microbial community which is important because microbes immobilise nitrogen in the soil.
"We show that traditionally managed haymeadows have lower leaching of nitrogen because the plant roots take up more nitrogen, but also because the microbial community in these hay meadows is dominated by fungi instead of bacteria.
"Haymeadows with more fungi are better able to retain nitrogen and prevent it leaching away into the water.
"Haymeadows might support more biodiversity because their microbial communities can immobilise three times more added nitrogen into their biomass."
Thu 06 December 2012
Latest News
Unborn babies 'practise' facial expressions in the womb
Researchers from Durham and Lancaster Universities suggest that a foetus's ability to show a "pain" facial expression is a developmental process which could potentially give doctors another index of the health of a foetus.
Story supplied by LU Press Office
Mon 17 June 2013
Lancaster leads the way in cyber security bursary scheme
Lancaster is one of four UK universities selected to take part in an 'industry first' sponsorship initiative encouraging students to take up Masters-level cyber security degrees.
Story supplied by LU Press Office
Mon 10 June 2013
Physicists gain insight into the UK's biggest killer
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the UK, accounting for a third of all fatalities through illnesses such as stroke and heart disease.
Story supplied by LU Press Office
Wed 29 May 2013
Engineering students make finals of national start-up business competition
Engineering students Scott Nash, Daniel Richardson and Aaron Aboshio have won the northern heat of the Youth Entrepreneurs Scheme 'Engineering YES' competition for their spin-out renewable energy company Atlantis.
Thu 23 May 2013