Quantifying microbial growth and carbon use efficiency in dry soil environments via ¹⁸ O water vapor equilibration.

ABSTRACT: Soil microbial physiology controls large fluxes of C to the atmosphere, thus, improving our ability to accurately quantify microbial physiology in soil is essential. However, current methods to determine microbial C metabolism require liquid water addition, which makes it practically impossible to measure microbial physiology in dry soil samples without stimulating microbial growth and respiration (namely, the "Birch effect"). We developed a new method based on in vivo ¹⁸ O-water vapor equilibration to minimize soil rewetting effects. This method allows the isotopic labeling of soil water without direct liquid water addition. This was compared to the main current method (direct ¹⁸ O-liquid water addition) in moist and air-dry soils. We determined the time kinetics and

SUBMITTER: Canarini A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7497233 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature