Effects of throughfall manipulation on soil nutrient status: results of 12 years of sustained wet and dry treatments

To investigate the potential effects of changing precipitation on forest ecosystems, the Throughfall Displacement Experiment (TDE) was established on Walker Branch Watershed, Tennessee, in 1993. Three different throughfall amounts were tested: ?33% (DRY); ambient (no change, AMB); and +33% (WET). Throughfall manipulations had no statistically significant effects on total C, N, exchangeable Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, bicarbonate‐extractable P, or extractable SO₄^2? in soils after 12 years of sustained treatments. Increased K⁺ inputs in the WET treatment resulted in relative increases in exchangeable K⁺compared with the AMB and DRY treatments. Soil C, N, and extractable P declined in all treatments over the 12‐year study, and the declines in N were inexplicably large. Field observations contrasted with earlier simulations from the Nutrient Cycling Model (NuCM), which predicted greater decreases in exchangeable K⁺, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, and extractable P in the order WET>AMB>DRY, and no change in C, N, and extractable SO₄^2?. The failure of the NuCM model to accurately predict observed changes is attributed to the lack of mechanisms for deep rooting and the transfer of throughfall K⁺ from one plot to another in the model. Measurements of element availability using resin membranes during the final years showed higher values in wet and lower values in dry treatments compared with ambient conditions for mineral N, K, Mn, Zn, and Al, but the opposite for B, Ca, and Mg. In the cases of Ca and Mg, the patterns in resin values were similar to those at the soil exchange sites (greatest in the dry treatment) and appeared to reflect pretreatment differences. This study showed that while longer term changes in soil nutrients are likely to occur with changes in precipitation, potential changes over this 12‐year interval were buffered by ecosystem processes such as deep rooting.     

Defensive display behaviour in some Australian and Papuan-New Guinean pygopodid lizards, boid, colubrid and elapid snakes

The defensive display behaviour is described in 34 species of snakes and 3 species of pygopodid lizards based upon field and laboratory observations. Various aspects of the behaviour are categorized and their significance discussed in relation to survival value.     

Effect of Lithium on Rearing Activity in Rats

EVEN though the use of lithium salts is well established in the clinical treatment of manic states¹ and to a lesser extent in the prophylactic treatment of recurrent depression², there have been few reports of their effects on animal behaviour in laboratory conditions. One reason may lie in Schou's doubts³ as to whether lithium salts have any effects on behaviour outside the clinical context. This view was based on unpublished findings of I. M. Nielson, A. Amdisen, D. R. Maxwell and Schou himself and on the hypothesis that lithium serves to correct a specific biochemical or physiological imbalance characteristic of recurrent affective disorders⁴.     

WIND DIRECTION AND THE INFESTATION OF BEAN FIELDS BY APHIS FABAE SCOP.

Bean fields are often attacked by Aphis fabae very heavily along the edges: and on a field at Rothamsted in 1948 the sides facing the wind during the primary migration had more colonies than those in the lee of the crop (Johnson, 1950). Additional observations on the distribution of colonies were made on six bean fields at Sutton Bonington in 1950–2.
At Rothamsted in 1948 it was assumed that the more numerous colonies on the windward sides of the field followed a heavier deposition of primary migrants there, though the migrants themselves were not observed on the crop. In 1950–2 the locations of primary migrants, as well as of colonies, were recorded in three out of the six fields observed.