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Here, we present our collective musings on soil research challenges and opportunities and, in particular, the points raised by Philippe Baveye (Baveye, 2020a, 2020b) and Johan Bouma (Bouma, 2020) on I bypass i and I hyperbole i in soil science. Furthermore, developing a healthy and constructive post-publication peer-review system, where bypasses and hyperbolic approaches can be identified and discussed, would ultimately boost publication quality and contribute to a more open discourse in soil science. [Extracted from the article]

ABSTRACT Established ecological theory has focused on unitary organisms, and thus its concepts have matured into a form that often hinders rather than facilitates the ecological study of modular organisms. Here, we use the example of filamentous fungi to develop concepts that enable integration of non‐unitary (modular) organisms into the established community ecology theory, with particular focus on its spatial aspects. In doing so, we provide a link between fungal community ecology and modern coexistence theory (MCT). We first show how community processes and predictions made by MCT can be used to define meaningful scales in fungal ecology. This leads to the novel concept of the unit of community interactions (UCI), a promising conceptual tool for applying MCT to communities of modular organisms with indeterminate clonal growth and hierarchical individuality. We outline plausible coexistence mechanisms structuring fungal communities, and show at what spatial scales and in what habitats they are most likely to act. We end by describing challenges and opportunities for empirical and theoretical research in fungal competitive coexistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In reclaimed land, the growth environment for plants may be unfavorable and the initial establishment and growth of seedlings could be limited because of low nutrient and water availability. Fertilization and control of understory vegetation that competes with seedlings may be of help in ameliorating soil physical and chemical properties, resulting in better seedling growth and reclamation success. However, the amount of nutrients understory vegetation absorbs in this ecological process has been rarely studied. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effect of soil amendment on biomass production and nutrient uptake by weeds in the nutrient-poor reclaimed area. We applied three levels of torrefied wood chip (TWC; 0, 2.5, and 5 Mg ha−1) and two levels of vermicompost (VC; 0 and 2.7 Mg ha−1) as soil physical improvements and organic soil amendments in reclaimed land in the Republic of Korea, with Populus euramericana used as the crop tree. Results: TWC did not influence weed biomass, but 2.7 Mg ha−1 VC significantly increased weed biomass by 21% compared to 0 Mg ha−1 VC treatments. Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and sodium (Na) concentrations in weeds were the highest in control, but there was no statistical difference among treatments. However, VC treatment did marginally increase nutrient uptake in weeds, especially P, K, Ca, and Na. No treatments influenced crop tree height. Conclusion: We conclude that VC can be used as an organic source of nutrients in reclaimed soil and that weed management is necessary to increase treatment effects on crop trees in this salt-affected reclaimed land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People whom the editors of the periodical would like to thank for their assistance for reviewing the manuscripts are mentioned which includes Javier Abadia, Lynette Abbott and Thomas Adams.

Expert reviewers whom the author would like to thank for reviewing one or more manuscripts for the periodical during 2013 are mentioned.