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Title: Hotspots of soil N2O emission enhanced through water absorption by plant residue

Journal Article · · Nature Geoscience
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2963· OSTI ID:1375352

N2O is a highly potent greenhouse gas and arable soils represent its major anthropogenic source. Field-scale assessments and predictions of soil N2O emission remain uncertain and imprecise due to the episodic and microscale nature of microbial N2O production, most of which occurs within very small discrete soil volumes. Such hotspots of N2O production are often associated with decomposing plant residue. Here we quantify physical and hydrological soil characteristics that lead to strikingly accelerated N2O emissions in plant residue-induced hotspots. Results reveal a mechanism for microscale N2O emissions: water absorption by plant residue that creates unique micro-environmental conditions, markedly different from those of the bulk soil. Moisture levels within plant residue exceeded those of bulk soil by 4–10-fold and led to accelerated N2O production via microbial denitrification. The presence of large (Ø >35 μm) pores was a prerequisite for maximized hotspot N2O production and for subsequent diffusion to the atmosphere. Understanding and modelling hotspot microscale physical and hydrologic characteristics is a promising route to predict N2O emissions and thus to develop effective mitigation strategies and estimate global fluxes in a changing environment.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
Sponsoring Organization:
NIHDOE - BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
OSTI ID:
1375352
Journal Information:
Nature Geoscience, Vol. 10, Issue 7; ISSN 1752-0894
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
ENGLISH

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Emergent Properties of Microbial Activity in Heterogeneous Soil Microenvironments: Different Research Approaches Are Slowly Converging, Yet Major Challenges Remain journal August 2018
Estimation of isotope variation of N 2 O during denitrification by Pseudomonas aureofaciens and Pseudomonas chlororaphis : implications for N 2 O source apportionment journal January 2018
Physical constraints for respiration in microbial hotspots in soil and their importance for denitrification journal January 2019
Data from: Hotspots of soil N2O emission enhanced through water absorption by plant residue dataset January 2019
In Situ Quantification of Biological N 2 Production Using Naturally Occurring 15 N 15 N journal April 2019


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