The complexities of the relationships between plant and soil microbial communities remain unresolved. We determined the associations between plant aboveground and belowground (root) distributions and the communities of soil fungi and bacteria found across a diverse tropical forest plot. Soil microbial community composition was correlated with the taxonomic and phylogenetic structure of the aboveground plant assemblages even af...

The South American Monsoon System (SAMS) is characterised by intense convective activity and precipitation during austral summer. This study investigates changes in the onset, demise and duration of SAMS during 1948–2008. The results show a significant change in these characteristics in the early 1970s. Onset becomes steadily earlier from 1948 to early 1970s and has occurred earlier than 23–27 October after 1972–1973. Demise d...