Long-term contrasts in agricultural management can shift soil resource availability with potential consequences to microbial carbon (C) use efficiency (CUE) and the fate of C in soils. Isothermal calorimetry was combined with 13C-labeled glucose stable isotope probing (SIP) of 16S rRNA genes to test the hypothesis that organically managed soils would support microbial communities with greater t...

Nitroaromatic compounds are produced and used in large quantities worldwide and are frequently detected contaminants in the environment. Sorption is one of the fundamental processes controlling the transport and availability of nitroaromatics, but previous studies have focused mainly on sorption to model clay minerals, whereas little attention has been paid to the sorptive interactions with nat...

To improve predictions of air quality, visibility, and climate change, knowledge of the viscosities and diffusion rates within organic particulate matter consisting of secondary organic material (SOM) is required. Most qualitative and quantitative measurements of viscosity and diffusion rates within organic particulate matter have focused on SOM particles generated from biogenic volatile organi...

chlorotica Aporrectodea rosea X-ray tomography Burrow networks Microcosms Earthworms are considered as key actors of soil processes at different spatial and temporal scales and provide essential ecosystem services linked to climate regulation or primary production. However, little is known about their basic functional roles (e.g. organic matter decomposition, soil structuring processes) in pert...

Globally, grassland soils, if managed properly, are important for the sake of carbon sequestration. The quality and quantity of soil organic carbon is probably influenced by vegetation traits such as composition and plant species. We determined the influence of vegetation composition and co-dominant species on soil organic carbon in two Prangus uloptera stands. The stands situated at close prox...

A large proportion of the world's carbon is stored as soil organic matter (SOM). However, the mechanisms regulating the stability of this SOM remain unclear. Recent work suggests that SOM may be stabilized by mechanisms other than chemical recalcitrance. Here, we show that the mineralization rate of starch, a plant polymer commonly found in litter and soil, is concentration dependent, such that...

252 Pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) compound present in contaminated soil at the Champion International Superfund site in Libby, Montana, a site presently undergoing land farming/preparedbed bioremediation, was evaluated with regard to incorporation into soil components (humification) in biologically active and poisoned treatments under varying environmental conditions including...

Understanding the temperature sensitivity (Q 10) of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition is important for predicting soil carbon (C) sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems under warming scenarios. Whether Q 10 varies predictably with ecosystem succession and the ways in which the stoichiometry of input SOM influences Q 10 remain largely unknown. We investigate these issues using a grassland...