Local temperature optimum of N2O production rates in tropical rain forest soils of Australia
Lutz Breuer A B C and Klaus Butterbach-Bahl AA Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), Kreuzeckbahnstr. 19, 84762 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
B Present address: Institute for Landscape Ecology and Resources Management, University of Giessen, Heinrich-Buff Ring 26, 35392 Giessen, Germany.
C Corresponding author. Email: lutz.breuer@agrar.uni-giessen.de
Australian Journal of Soil Research 43(6) 689-694 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR04149
Submitted: 13 October 2004 Accepted: 17 June 2005 Published: 22 September 2005
Abstract
Laboratory experiments are well-accepted approaches to study the temperature dependency of soil N-turnover processes under defined boundary conditions. However, many of these experiments have several drawbacks: the soil temperature regimes investigated are far wider than the span of soil temperatures observed in the field, the increments of the sampled soil temperatures are wide and may hide interesting details such as non-linear reaction of N-turnover processes, and due to the successive sampling over several days nutrient supply and soil moisture conditions change over time. The first 2 drawbacks are especially important when investigating soil samples from tropical rain forests as these sites are characterised by only small temperature amplitudes. Here we show an approach that allows the study of N-turnover processes at realistic soil temperature regimes observed in the field and small temperature increments within a short period of time. N2O production rates are measured for soil samples from 3 tropical rain forest sites in Queensland, Australia. Kinetics of N2O production follow exponential increases with increasing soil temperatures but are additionally characterised by local temperature optima at 2 of the 3 sites. The temperature response of N2O production rates at these 2 sites can be best described by the use of a combined exponential and optimum temperature function, which improves the coefficient of determination from 1% and 13% to 95% and 99%, respectively. The results further indicate that the microbial processes responsible for N2O production are well adapted to the mean annual temperature conditions of these sites. Successful application of the combined exponential and optimum function to other published results of N-turnover studies support this assumption.
Additional keywords: N2O production, nitrogen turnover, climate change.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under contract No. BU 1173/1-1. We would like to thank H. Papen who made valuable comments on the manuscript and J. Ingwersen as well as J. A. Huisman who helped in the mathematical evaluation of the approach.
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