Table 1.
Soil physico-chemical parameters (mean ± EE) for each treatment.
Differences between treatments (g.l = 2; n = 15) are shown with letters. WC: Water holding capacity, OM: organic matter, P: assimilable Phosphorous, K: assimilable Potassium, N: Total Nitrogen. Different letters indicate significant differences between treatments (Post hock Turkey test, P<0.05).
Fig 1.
A) Graph representation of the period December 2010 to November 2011 showing mean monthly CO2 production rate (g CO2 m-2 h-1) in the experimental plots by each treatment: Control, Manure and Topsoil. The error bars show the standard error. B) Ombrothermic diagram of the study area for the same period.
Fig 2.
A) Soil compaction measured in March 2011 and B) Bare soil cover in the two sampling seasons (May 2011: open quadrats) and May 2012 (black quadrats) in experimental plots (Control, Manure and Topsoil).
Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals
Fig 3.
A) Mean number of rills for the two experimental years and B) Accumulated rill width in 2 m transects on experimental plots in the upper (open circles) and lower (black circles) parts of the embankment (Control, Manure and Topsoil).
Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals
Fig 4.
Species richness for (A) upper slope zones and (B) lower slope zones in the two sampling seasons (May 2011: open quadrats) and May 2012 (black quadrats) in experimental plots (Control, Manure and Topsoil).
Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
Fig 5.
Species composition response to treatments.
Y-axis in Principal Response Curves PRC diagram: first component of variation explained by differences in treatment over time. X-axis: control treatments. Dotted line: manure treatment. Solid line: topsoil treatment. The weighting of each species on the principal axis (right of PRC diagram) represents affinity of each species to treatments. Species with positive weighting in PRC1 are abundant in Topsoil plots while species with negative weighting are abundant in Manure plots. Only species showing fits greater than 5 are shown. Anth.arv, Anthemis arvensis; Brom.rub, Bromus rubens; Brom.dia, Bromus diandrus; Brom.tec, Bromus tectorum; Cory. fas, Corynephorus fasciculatus; Epil. Bra, Epilobium brachicarpum; Fila spa, Filago spatulata; Lina.spa, Linaria spartea; Trif.arv., Trifolium arvense; Trif.che, Trifolium cherleri; Trif.glo, Trifolium glomeratum.