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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2016

To document

Abstract

A total of 967 students (males and females) from four secondary schools in Vysocina region of Czechia were interviewed via 24‐question Likert‐type questionnaire to assess student’s environmental awareness and perceptions. The generalized linear models were used to test if (and to what extent) student perceptions related to environment are/ or not influenced by various factors including gender, age, place of residence, educational level, and specialization. The results showed that students’ age, place of residence, education level and their specialization did not significantly affect (p<0.05) their environmental perceptions. However, gender appeared to be statistically significant (p<0.05) influencing student environmental perceptions and also showed linkages to basic environmental education, attitudes and engagement of students in science-related activities. Our results strongly support the need for more environmental education, awareness campaigns in the schools and engaging students in outdoor environment related activities. Future research should include detail environmental surveys targeting school students across Czechia.

To document

Abstract

Biochar and its properties can be significantly altered according to how it is produced, and this has ramifications towards how biochar behaves once added to soil. We produced biochars from corncob and miscanthus straw via different methods (slow pyrolysis, hydrothermal and flash carbonization) and temperatures to assess how carbon cycling and soil microbial communities were affected. Mineralization of biochar, its parent feedstock, and native soil organic matter were monitored using 13C natural abundance during a 1-year lab incubation. Bacterial and fungal community compositions were studied using T-RFLP and ARISA, respectively. We found that persistent biochar-C with a half-life 60 times higher than the parent feedstock can be achieved at pyrolysis temperatures of as low as 370 °C, with no further gains to be made at higher temperatures. Biochar re-applied to soil previously incubated with our highest temperature biochar mineralized faster than when applied to unamended soil. Positive priming of native SOC was observed for all amendments but subsided by the end of the incubation. Fungal and bacterial community composition of the soil-biochar mixture changed increasingly with the application of biochars produced at higher temperatures as compared to unamended soil. Those changes were significantly (P < 0.005) related to biochar properties (mainly pH and O/C) and thus were correlated to pyrolysis temperature. In conclusion, our results suggest that biochar produced at temperatures as low as 370 °C can be utilized to sequester C in soil for more than 100 years while having less impact on soil microbial activities than high-temperature biochars.