David B Smith
Science and Products
Characterizing landscape genomics and reconstructing pathways to plant ecological specialization and speciation
This proposal brings together biologists and geoscientists to evaluate the evolution of stress tolerance and adaptation to extreme environments in plants. Stress tolerance has been studied mainly from a physiological perspective using laboratory and field experiments. In contrast, this project will take a combined environmental and evolutionary perspective using national public databases and a...
Backgrounds and Baselines
This project developed a geochemical information base through studies ranging in scale from site-specific to regional and national.
Geochemical and mineralogical maps, with interpretation, for soils of the conterminous United States
Between 2007 and 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a low-density (1 site per 1,600 square kilometers, 4,857 sites) geochemical and mineralogical survey of soils in the conterminous United States. The sampling protocol for the national-scale survey included, at each site, a sample from a depth of 0 to 5 centimeters, a composite of the soil...
Smith, David B.; Solano, Federico; Woodruff, Laurel G.; Cannon, William F.; Ellefsen, Karl J.
Chemical elements in the environment: multi-element geochemical datasets from continental to national scale surveys on four continents
During the last 10-20 years, Geological Surveys around the world have undertaken a major effort towards delivering fully harmonized and tightly quality-controlled low-density multi-element soil geochemical maps and datasets of vast regions including up to whole continents. Concentrations of between 45 and 60 elements commonly have been determined...
Caritat, Patrice de; Reimann, Clemens; Smith, David B.; Wang, Xueqiu The interacting roles of climate, soils, and plant production on soil microbial communities at a continental scale
Soil microbial communities control critical ecosystem processes such as decomposition, nutrient cycling, and soil organic matter formation. Continental scale patterns in the composition and functioning of microbial communities are related to climatic, biotic, and edaphic factors such as temperature and precipitation, plant community composition,...
Waldrop, Mark P.; Holloway, JoAnn M.; Smith, David B.; Goldhaber, Martin B.; Drenovsky, R.E.; Scow, K.M.; Dick, R.; Howard, Daniel M.; Wylie, Bruce K.; Grace, James B. Pyrogenic carbon distribution in mineral topsoils of the northeastern United States
Due to its slow turnover rates in soil, pyrogenic carbon (PyC) is considered an important C pool and relevant to climate change processes. Therefore, the amounts of soil PyC were compared to environmental covariates over an area of 327,757 km2 in the northeastern United States in order to understand the controls on PyC distribution over large...
Jauss, Verena; Sullivan, Patrick J.; Sanderman, Jonathan; Smith, David B.; Lehmann, Johannes Surface-air mercury fluxes across Western North America: A synthesis of spatial trends and controlling variables
Mercury (Hg) emission and deposition can occur to and from soils, and are an important component of the global atmospheric Hg budget. This paper focuses on synthesizing existing surface-air Hg flux data collected throughout the Western North American region and is part of a series of geographically focused Hg synthesis projects. A database of...
Eckley, Chris S.; Tate, Michael T.; Lin, Che-Jen; Gustin, Mae S.; Dent, Stephen; Eagles-Smith, Collin A.; Lutz, Michelle A; Wickland, Kimberly; Wang, Bronwen; Gray, John E.; Edwards, Grant; Krabbenhoft, David P.; Smith, David B. The distribution of selected elements and minerals in soil of the conterminous United States
In 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey initiated a low-density (1 site per 1600 km2, 4857 sites) geochemical and mineralogical survey of soil of the conterminous United States as part of the North American Soil Geochemical Landscapes Project. Three soil samples were collected, if possible, from each site; (1) a sample from a depth of 0 to 5...
Woodruff, Laurel G.; Cannon, William F.; Smith, David B.; Solano, Federico