Pasture damage by an Amazonian earthworm

Armand Chauvel (), Michel Grimaldi, Eleusa Barros, Eric Blanchart, Thierry Desjardins, Max Sarrazin and Patrick Lavelle
Additional contact information
Armand Chauvel: Laboratoire dEcologie des Sols Tropicaux, ORSTOM
Michel Grimaldi: ORSTOM/INRA, Science du Sol
Eleusa Barros: INPA/ORSTOM-Ecologia
Eric Blanchart: ORSTOM Martinique
Thierry Desjardins: Laboratoire dEcologie des Sols Tropicaux, ORSTOM
Max Sarrazin: INPA/ORSTOM-Ecologia
Patrick Lavelle: Laboratoire dEcologie des Sols Tropicaux, ORSTOM

Nature, 1999, vol. 398, issue 6722, 32-33

Abstract: Abstract Almost all cultivated soils undergo some reduction in the porosity of the surface layers, and nowhere is this more evident than in tropical rainforests that have been converted to pastures. Following deforestation in an area of Costa Rica, soil bulk density has been shown to increase rapidly after conversion to pasture, leading to poor drainage and a reduced rate of gaseous diffusion1. These factors limit methane consumption and promote the anaerobic production of methane. A similar effect on methane flux has been found in upland soils in the Brazilian Amazonian basin after conversion from forest to pasture2,3. Increases in atmospheric methane are therefore not limited to emissions from flooded soils4, as forest-to-pasture conversion promotes the anaerobic mineralization of organic matter by changing the physical properties of soil.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/17946 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:398:y:1999:i:6722:d:10.1038_17946

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/17946

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().