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Paul (Eldor A.) Collection

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/100513
This digital collection includes articles by Eldor A. Paul, a Senior Research Scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and a Professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Eldor has had a lifelong interest in teaching and research in both grassland ecology and agroecosystems, ranging from wheat fields in Canada, through corn-belt rotations in the Great Lakes region of the US, into the afforested systems in California and Colorado.

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Browsing Paul (Eldor A.) Collection by Subject "agriculture"

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    Agriculture's role in greenhouse gas mitigation
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2006-09) Paul, Eldor A., author; Sheehan, John, author; Antle, John M., author; Paustian, Keith, author; Pew Center on Global Climate Change, publisher
    This report describes opportunities for U.S. agriculture to contribute to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change was established by the Pew Charitable Trusts to bring a new cooperative approach and critical scientific, economic, and technological expertise to the global climate change debate.
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    Ecology and the agricultural sciences: a false dichotomy?
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 1989-12) Paul, Eldor A., author; Robertson, G. Phillip, author; Ecological Society of America, publisher
    Analysis of the relationship between ecology and agriculture requires an understanding of how the two areas see themselves and each other. Both disciplines have common roots in botany, chemistry, physics, and geology, and in the interactions among both biotic and abiotic factors. Agriculture has long been recognized as an applied science with interdisciplinary traditions that involve the recognition that some of its management techniques are as much an art as a science. The opportunity for the ecologist in modern agriculture, then, is to provide concepts and principles that can be used as tools to design resource-efficient agricultural systems. The development of these principles will depend on basic research aimed at understanding organism-level interactions in the agronomic environment. Agronomists have for too long ignored ecology and the benefits to be derived from integrated research approaches. Ecologists have for too long considered agronomic systems inherently uninteresting. It's time to close the gap.
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    Evaluation of carbon accrual in afforested agricultural soils
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007-06) Morris, Sherri J., author; Haile-Mariam, Shawel, author; Bohm, Sven, author; Paul, Eldor A., author; Blackwell Publishing Ltd., publisher
    Afforestation of agricultural lands can provide economically and environmentally realistic C storage to mitigate for elevated CO2 until other actions such as reduced fossil fuel use can be taken. Soil carbon sequestration following afforestation of agricultural land ranges from losses to substantial annual gains. The present understanding of the controlling factors is inadequate for understanding ecosystem dynamics, modeling global change and for policy decision-makers. Our study found that planting agricultural soils to deciduous forests resulted in ecosystem C accumulations of 2.4 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 and soil accumulations of 0.35 Mg C ha-1 yr-1. Planting to conifers showed an average ecosystem sequestration of 2.5 and 0.26 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 in the soils but showed greater field to field variability than when planted to deciduous forest. Path analysis showed that Ca was positively related to soil C accumulations for both conifers and deciduous afforested sites and played a significant role in soil C accumulations in these sites. Soil N increases were closely related to C accumulation and were two times greater than could be explained by system N inputs from atmospheric deposition and natural sources. Our results suggest that the addition of Ca to afforested sites, especially conifers, may be an economical means to enhance soil C sequestration even if it does not result in increasing C in aboveground pools. The mechanism of N accumulation in these aggrading stands needs further investigation.
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    Greenhouse gases in intensive agriculture: contributions of individual gases to the radiative forcing of the atmosphere
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2000-09-15) Harwood, Richard R., author; Paul, Eldor A., author; Robertson, G. Philip, author; American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher
    Agriculture plays a major role in the global fluxes of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. From 1991 to 1999, we measured gas fluxes and other sources of global warming potential (GWP) in cropped and nearby unmanaged ecosystems. Net GWP (grams of carbon dioxide equivalents per square meter per year) ranged from 110 in our conventional tillage systems to -211 in early successional communities. None of the annual cropping systems provided net mitigation, although soil carbon accumulation in no-till systems came closest to mitigating all other sources of GWP. In all but one ecosystem, nitrous oxide production was the single greatest source of GWP. In the late successional system, GWP was neutral because of significant methane oxidation. These results suggest additional opportunities for lessening the GWP of agronomic systems.
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    Measuring and monitoring soil organic carbon stocks in agricultural lands for climate mitigation
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011-04) Paul, Eldor A., author; Ogle, Stephen M., author; Conant, Richard, author; Paustian, Keith, author; Ecological Society of America, publisher
    Policies that encourage greenhouse-gas emitters to mitigate emissions through terrestrial carbon (C) offsets – C sequestration in soils or biomass – will promote practices that reduce erosion and build soil fertility, while fostering adaptation to climate change, agricultural development, and rehabilitation of degraded soils. However, none of these benefits will be possible until changes in C stocks can be documented accurately and cost-effectively. This is particularly challenging when dealing with changes in soil organic C (SOC) stocks. Precise methods for measuring C in soil samples are well established, but spatial variability in the factors that determine SOC stocks makes it difficult to document change. Widespread interest in the benefits of SOC sequestration has brought this issue to the fore in the development of US and international climate policy. Here, we review the challenges to documenting changes in SOC stocks, how policy decisions influence offset documentation requirements, and the benefits and drawbacks of different sampling strategies and extrapolation methods.