It is well known that soils are influenced by the plant species that grow in them. Here we consider the effects of management-induced changes to plant communities and their soils during restoration within a 20-year manipulative experiment where the aim was to change a late-successional community dominated by the weed, Pteridium aquilinum, to an earlier-successional grass-heath one. The ecological restoration treatments altered the above- and below-ground components of the community substantially. Untreated plots maintained a dense Pteridium cover with little understory vegetation, cutting treatments produce significant reductions of Pteridium, whereas herbicide (asulam) produced significant immediate reductions in Pteridium but regressed towards the untreated plots within 10 years. Thereafter, all asulam-treated plots were re-treated in year 11, and then were spot-sprayed annually. Both cutting and asulam treatments reduced frond density to almost zero and resulted in a grass-heath vegetation. There was also a massive change in biomass distribution, untreated plots had a large above-ground biomass/necromass that was much reduced where Pteridium was controlled. Below-ground in treated plots, there was a replacement of the substantive Pteridium rhizome mass with a much greater root mass of other species. The combined effects of Pteridium-control and restoration treatment, reduced soil total C and N as and available P concentrations, but increased soil pH and available N. Soil biological activity was also affected with a reduction in soil N mineralization rate, but an increased soil-root respiration. Multivariate analysis showed a clear trend along a pH/organic matter gradient, with movement along it correlated to management intensity from the untreated plots with low pH/high organic matter and treated plots with to a higher pH/lower organic matter in the sequence asulam treatment, cut once per year to cut twice per year. The role that these changed soil conditions might have in restricting Pteridium recovery are discussed.
Price £40, hardback. ISBN 0 412 64040 6.In the summer of 1994, a meeting organized by Thomas Lindahl and Stephen West was held at the premises of the Royal Society to discuss recent progress and ideas on DNA repair and recombination. The I 990s has been an extraordinary period for DNA repair in particular, with the topic moving from something of a minority interest to a point where the link between a repair defect (in mismatch repair) and cancer (Hereditary Non-Polyposis Colon Cancer, HNPCC) has been proven beyond doubt. The totally unexpected and intimate link between repair and transcription has been established, and the DNA repair enzyme has been voted 'molecule of the year' by one prestigious journal. Quite how much of this the organizers were aware of before the meeting was organized I am not sure, but their foresight was rewarded with a meeting of exquisite timeliness. British Rail once again did their best to make attendance at the meeting difficult with a series of strikes, but they failed miserably and the hall was full to listen to the great and the good present their research data. Following the meeting, as is the norm, the presentations were published as a collection of papers, edited by the meeting organizers, and that is the origin of this book.What we have then is a collection of up-to-date (as of 1994) reviews written by the leaders in their field, and touching on almost every area of DNA repair and recombination. The book is not a comprehensive treatise on these topics -it could not be with just 14 chapters and 100 pages to cover the material. Compare that with the 700 pages Errol Friedberg takes to cover DNA repair in his excellent new text book (DNA Repair and Mutagenesis by Errol C. Friedberg, Graham, C. Walker and Wolfram Siede, ASM Publications, Washington, 1995) and you will get the idea. What we find here are reviews that move as near as possible (give publication delays) to the forefront of current research and which present an overview that must surely stimulate the most jaded intellect. To be sure, much of the material in the book has now been published in the primary literature and if you need the experimental details you must go and look there. However, if you want reviews of recombination (from the labs of Charles Radman with a much more discursive article on the role of repair processes in general (and mismatch repair in particular) in evolution. Miroslav is often asked to give the final talks at repair meetings because of his welldeserved reputation for stimulating and imaginative presentations. He does not let us down here and the same can be said for the whole book which provides an excellent starting point for anyone interested in these topics.
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