2 search hits
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Role of Dissolved Organic Nitrogen in the Soil Nitrogen Cycle of Forest Ecosystems
(2010)
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Bettina Schmidt
- In the last years, dissolved organic N (DON) has been shown to be a crucial part of the soil N cycle in forest ecosystems. Despite this, information on its dynamics, sources and fate is still lacking. Especially data from (sub)tropical forest ecosystems are scarce. Therefore, this study investigated (i) the magnitude and drivers of DON fluxes in a subtropical montane forest, (ii) the biodegradability of DON from forest floors, (iii) the abiotic formation mechanism for DON in forest floors as postulated by the Ferrous Wheel Hypothesis and (iv) the link between DON and dissolved organic C (DOC) dynamics. In a field study (2005-2008), average DON fluxes in forest floor percolates and seepage (60 cm) of a subtropical montainous cypress forest (16 and 8 kg N ha-1 yr-1, respectively) were similar to fluxes in other (sub)tropical ecosystems, and dominated total N fluxes. Dissolved organic N concentrations in the soil were independent of the water flux (meaning that no dilution effect was visible). This implies that first, the pool size of potentially soluble DON is variable and second, that this pool is hard to deplete. In contrast, the linear relationship between soil organic solute and water fluxes was positive, showing that precipitation is an important driver for DON losses in this ecosystem. Although this has also been reported from temperate ecosystems, this relationship did not hold when analyzing the combined data from various (sub)tropical and temperate forest ecosystems. The biodegradability of DON was highest in inoculated spruce-Oi water extracts in a 21-day incubation experiment, while in extracts from beech-Oi and Oa horizons, DON concentrations only slightly decreased. Dissolved organic N was recalcitrant in spruce-Oa and cypress-Oa extracts, indicating that this DON could add to the formation of stable soil N pools. As various additions of NO3- never influenced DON biodegradation, it is concluded that microbes do not necessarily prefer mineral N over DON as substrate. Mineralization was always more important than microbial uptake in samples without NO3- additions, and denitrification only played a minor role in spruce-Oi samples (as indicated by a negative balance of all N species after 21 days). Fluorescence excitation-emission spectroscopy and subsequent parallel factor analysis identified four groups of fluorophores in the extracts. The initial concentration of two of these so-called factors was correlated with DON biodegradation, but protein-like fluorescence (which has been suggested as a proxy for dissolved organic matter biodegradation) was shown to be independent of DON biodegradation due to similar excitation-emission-maxima of recalcitrant compounds. Therefore, these factors might not always be suitable to predict DON biodegradation. The abiotic reaction of NO2- with DOC (as postulated by the last step of the Ferrous Wheel Hypothesis) was tested in a second incubation experiment in extracts with varying DOC concentrations and qualities and NO2- additions under oxic conditions. Concentrations of added NO2- never decreased within 60 min, indicating, that no DON formation from added NO2- took place. The results show, that the last step of the Ferrous Wheel Hypothesis (which has been suggested to be fast) is unlikely to occur in forest floors. Dissolved organic N and C fluxes were both highly dependent on precipitation at the cypress site, suggesting a strong link between these two classes of compounds. This assumption was supported by the first incubation experiment, where both DON and DOC biodegradation were not influenced by NO3- additions. Moreover, DOC dynamics closely resembled DON dynamics, which suggests that DON biodegradation could be driven by microbial C demand. Therefore, the often used separation of DON and DOC into functionally different compound classes is not always warranted. In conclusion, this study emphasized the need to include DON in biogeochemical N studies of both temperate and (sub)tropical ecosystems, and provided new and important insights regarding DON biodegradation, possible DON sources in forest floors and the link between DON and DOC dynamics in forest ecosystems.
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Characterization of reactive and non reactive trace gas fluxes in and above soil
(2010)
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Anika Bargsten
- Nitrogen is one of the most important compounds on earth. All organisms need nitrogen to live and grow. Even the majority (78.08%) of the atmosphere (and so the air we breathe) is dinitrogen. Over the last century, human activities have dramatically increased emissions and removal of nitrogen to the global atmosphere by as much as three to five fold. Nitrous oxide is the fourth largest single contributor to positive radiative forcing, and serves as the only long-lived atmospheric tracer of human perturbations of the global nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen oxides belong to the so called indirect greenhouse gases. These indirect greenhouse gases control the abundances of direct greenhouse gases through atmospheric chemistry and contribute on this way to the greenhouse effect. For a better understanding of these feedback mechanisms it is necessary to know the source strength of nitric oxide and nitrous oxide. Thus, the knowledge about exchange processes of nitrogen is of interest and importance for scientist and policy makers, likewise. This thesis contributes the understanding of processes in the nitrogen cycle. The thesis is addressed on nitric and nitrous oxide emissions. Nitric oxide emissions were measured on soil samples using an automated laboratory system. Nitrous oxide emissions were measured directly on the field site using a closed chamber technique. The laboratory measurements were compared with field measurements of NO (modified Bowen ratio method) at a grass land site. The field NO fluxes were always around 1.8 ng m 2 s-1 while the laboratory derived NO fluxes were between 2.1 and 5,2 ng m-2 s-1. The agreement between the two data sets is considered to be quite good. The laboratory derived NO fluxes exceeded the field NO fluxes by a factor of 1.5 to 2.5. Most studies of nitric oxide (NO) emission potentials up to now have investigated mineral soil layers only. In this thesis soil organic matter was sampled for laboratory measurements under different understory types (moss, grass, spruce, blueberries) in a humid mountainous Norway spruce forest plantation in the Fichtelgebirge (Germany). In this thesis the response of net potential NO fluxes on physical and chemical soil conditions (water content and temperature, bulk density, particle density, pH, C/N ratio, organic C, soil ammonium, soil nitrate) was determined. Net potential NO fluxes (in terms of mass of N) from soil samples taken under the different understories ranged from 1.7 - 9.8 ng m 2 s-1 (soil sampled under grass and moss cover), 55.4 - 59.3 ng m-2 s-1 (soil sampled under spruce cover), and 43.7 - 114.6 ng m 2 s-1 (soil sampled under blueberry cover) at optimum water content and a soil temperature of 10°C. Effects of soil physical and chemical characteristics on the net potential NO flux were statistically significant (0.01 probability level) only for NH4+. Therefore, as an alternative explanation for the differences in soil biogenic NO emission we consider more biological factors like understory vegetation type, amount of roots, and degree of mycorrhization; they provide a potential explanation of the observed differences of net potential NO fluxes. Also, soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in an unmanaged, old growth beech forest in the Hainich National Park, Germany, were measured at 15 plots over a one-year period (November 2005 to November 2006). The annual field N2O flux rate was 0.46±0.32 kg ha 1 yr 1. The N2O emissions showed a background emission pattern with two event based N2O peaks. A correlation analysis showed that the distance between plots (up to 380 m) was secondary for their flux correlations. Annual N2O fluxes obtained from a standard model (Forest-DNDC) parameterized with soil parameters as well as daily temperature and precipitation substantially overestimated the actual field N2O fluxes and also did not describe their actual temporal and spatial variabilities. Temporal variability was described well by the model only at plots with higher soil organic carbon and the modelled N2O fluxes increased during freezing periods only were soil organic carbon was larger than 0.06 kg-1 C kg. The results indicate that the natural background of nitrous oxide emissions may be lower than previously thought and also lower than assumed in standard modelling. This suggests a higher anthropogenic contribution to N2O emissions.
