[Terrapreta] SOM

[Michael Bailes]

The researchers found that most ecosystems—whether the icy Arctic tundra or
the warm, moist tropical jungle—followed the same set of rules, where the
amount of nitrogen released by decay was determined by the initial
concentration of nitrogen in the litter itself. "In the world of complex
biogeochemistry, we've discovered this fundamental process of nutrient
cycling by plants and microbes turns out to be relatively straightforward,"
noted study co-author Whendee Silver, an ecologist at the University of
California, Berkeley, in a statement. "For microbes, there is a fundamental
physiological constraint controlling nitrogen release."
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=3AE3BDA9-E7F2-99DF-3F2A065532F8FBD9&chanId=sa028


I don't know how they make the claims they do on carbon cycling and SOM in
forests in this article.

Gum (Eucalyptus) leaves do not break down.  They are made to be burnt.
Leaf litter just  builds up and up until a disastrous fire happens.
 The Aborigines used to make 'cold' fires' where the leaf liter was
regularly burn on cold still winter days.
 somewhere someone worked out that a foot of leaf litter gave you flames c
30m high! (Don't put too much faith in my remembered figures)

-- 
Michael Bailes
(IN OZ).

"Five years of Guantanamo:
Justice delayed is justice denied"
-Amnesty.International.
:candle:
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