Rhizosphere Image Gallery

Pinus ponderosa

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WARNING: The bitmap (BMP) images are over 1 megabyte per image! Full-sized jpegs are usually only about 40 kilobytes. We recommend downloading jpegs unless you require the highest image quality.

SCALE: Unless otherwise noted, these images are two centimeters wide and just under one and a half centimeters tall. To estimate the dimensions of zoom images, compare to their corresponding wide-angle shot. A fully-zoomed image can represent an area of the soil a mere three millimeters wide and two millimeters tall!


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The scene aboveground

Site: UCSC Arboretum

P. ponderosa is a large evergreen conifer; mature trees can be over one meter in diameter at breast height. Ponderosa pines can be distinguished from other pines by their characteristic large seperated bark-plates and symmetrical cones. Ponderosa pine thrive in Santa Cruz county's dry inland marine sand deposits, and are commonly associated with manzanita, knobcone pine, and various oaks.


The scene belowground


This image shows a root in transition. The older part, at the top of the image, is reddish-brown. The white part of the root is more recent.


Zoom in on above image where the root changes color.


Zoom in on a broken young root tip.


A centipede! This voracious predator was lurking just beneath the surface of the ground.


Fine root...


Root hairs...


New root growth...


Another new root...


Zoom in on the growing tips from the root above.


Old roots near the surface.


A zone of large woody roots, also near the surface.


Lateral root growth...


These fungal growths could be associated with the roots in this image.


Full zoom on the above image. The cloudy appearance is characteristic of soil fungi, whose individual hyphae are too small to be visible with our camera.


These spots are microbes that have colonized the moist area underneath the buried rhizotron tube.


This white area is probably the mycelial mat of a fungus living in the soil.


Young emerging root tip...


Young growing tips with red root in lower right.