Soil biochemistry is one of the branches of soil science dealing with the formation and decomposition of soil organic matter, biochemical reactions of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, metals and xenobiotics in soils, and biochemistry of the plant-root rhizosphere. This chapter is divided into eleven sections, the first of which provides a definition of soil biochemistry and its scope of in...

The formation of volatile compounds during abiotic degradation processes of aromatic compounds in soil has been the subject of many experimental studies but should be examined further. In this context, the present work investigates the natural formation of carbon suboxide using the model compounds catechol and 3,5-dichlorocatechol and also a soil sample from a peat bog. The measurements were pe...

" Human beings are all interlocked with plants, animals, soils and waters, in one humming community of cooperation and competition: one biota. They are related and bound into a seemless fabric " (Aldo Leopold, 1949).

Simulation models are valuable tools to increase understanding of complex soil chemical processes. Initially modeling was restricted by limited computational power; thus, complex natural systems were often simulated with site-specific, regression-based models. These models (classified as functional models by Hoosbeek & Bryant, 1992) do not deal with the actual processes but were designed to sim...

The persistence of Salmonella in the environment is influenced by a multitude of biotic and abiotic factors. In addition, its persistence can be influenced by preadaptation before the introduction into the environment. In order to study how preadaptation changes the survival of Salmonella in soil and therefore its potential to colonize the phytosphere, we developed a new medium based on lettuce...

We present a physically intuitive model of ice-lens formation and growth during the freezing of soils and other dense, particulate suspensions. Motivated by experimental evidence, we consider the growth of an ice-filled crack in a freezing soil. At low temperatures, ice in the crack exerts large pressures on the crack walls that will eventually cause the crack to split open. We show that the cr...

Abiotic conversion of the reactive nitrification intermediate hydroxylamine (NH2OH) to nitrous oxide (N2O) is a possible mechanism of N2O formation during nitrification. Previous research has demonstrated that manganese dioxide (MnO2) and organic matter (OM) content of soil as well as soil pH are important control variables of N2O formation in the soil. But until now, their combined effect on a...