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The Relationship between Microbial Carbon and the Resource Quality of Soil Carbon
Author(s) -
Webster E.A.,
Hopkins D.W.,
Chudek J.A.,
Haslam S.F.I.,
Šimek M.,
Pîcek T.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of environmental quality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.888
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1537-2537
pISSN - 0047-2425
DOI - 10.2134/jeq2001.301147x
Subject(s) - alkyl , soil carbon , biomass (ecology) , microorganism , decomposition , soil quality , environmental chemistry , chemistry , carbon fibers , soil organic matter , microbial population biology , soil science , environmental science , bacteria , ecology , biology , soil water , organic chemistry , mathematics , genetics , algorithm , composite number
The biological health of soil is an important aspect of soil quality because of the many critical functions performed by organisms in soil. Various indicators of soil quality have been proposed, but measurements of microbial biomass are most commonly used. During decomposition of plant residues in soil the relative intensities of the O‐alkyl‐C signal decreases and the alkyl‐C signal increases in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra. This leads to the suggestion that the alkyl‐C to O‐alkyl‐C ratio of a soil may indicate the degree of decomposition. Consequently, the overall resource quality of soil C as a substrate for heterotrophic microorganisms may be inversely related to the alkyl‐C to O‐alkyl‐C ratio. Our hypothesis is that a relationship exists between the size of the soil microbial community (microbial biomass) and the quality of soil carbon as a resource for microorganisms. New data have been combined with previously published data to show that there was a significant, negative correlation between the biomass C to total C (C mic to C org ) ratio and the alkyl‐C to O‐alkyl‐C ratio ( p < 0.01), which supports our hypothesis.