Tracing nitrogen transformations during spring development of winter wheat induced by N labeled cattle slurry applied with different techniques.

Slurry application is often associated with considerable nitrogen (N) losses: ammonia (NH), nitrous oxide (NO) and a mostly unknown contribution of dinitrogen (N) emission, as well as N leaching. Thus, an outdoor lysimeter experiment with growing winter wheat in undisturbed soil cores was set up to follow the transformation of cattle slurry NH and soil NO using a double labeling approach. Slurry treatments included the following application techniques: a trailing hose with/without acidification, and open slot injection with/without nitrification inhibitor.

Sources of nitrous oxide emissions from hydroponic tomato cultivation: Evidence from stable isotope analyses.

Introduction: Hydroponic vegetable cultivation is characterized by high intensity and frequent nitrogen fertilizer application, which is related to greenhouse gas emissions, especially in the form of nitrous oxide (NO). So far, there is little knowledge about the sources of NO emissions from hydroponic systems, with the few studies indicating that denitrification could play a major role.

Methods: Here, we use evidence from an experiment with tomato plants () grown in a hydroponic greenhouse setup to further shed light into the process of NO production based on the NO isotopocule method and the N tracing approach.

Impact of cattle slurry application methods on ammonia losses and grassland nitrogen use efficiency.

Optimal manure management is required to ensure efficient nutrient supply to farmland and to avoid adverse environmental impacts. Accordingly, ammonia (NH) emissions associated with different slurry application techniques were investigated in grassland trials under different soil and weather conditions across Germany. Cattle slurry was applied in two dressings, early in spring and after the first silage cut, with a target amount of 170 kg N ha.

Methanol utilizers of the rhizosphere and phyllosphere of a common grass and forb host species.

Background: Managed grasslands are global sources of atmospheric methanol, which is one of the most abundant volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere and promotes oxidative capacity for tropospheric and stratospheric ozone depletion. The phyllosphere is a favoured habitat of plant-colonizing methanol-utilizing bacteria. These bacteria also occur in the rhizosphere, but their relevance for methanol consumption and ecosystem fluxes is unclear.

Large herbivorous wildlife and livestock differentially influence the relative importance of different sources of energy for riverine food webs.

In many regions of the world, large populations of native wildlife have declined or been replaced by livestock grazing areas and farmlands, with consequences for terrestrial-aquatic ecosystem connectivity and trophic resources supporting food webs in aquatic ecosystems. The river continuum concept (RCC) and the riverine productivity model (RPM) predict a shift of energy supplying aquatic food webs along rivers: from terrestrial inputs in low-order streams to autochthonous production in mid-sized rivers. In Afromontane-savanna landscapes, the shifting numbers of large mammalian wildlife present a physical continuum whose ecological implications for rivers is not clearly understood.

C-chloromethane incubations provide evidence for novel bacterial chloromethane degraders in a living tree fern.

Chloromethane (CH Cl) is the most abundant halogenated volatile organic compound in the atmosphere and contributes to stratospheric ozone depletion. CH Cl has mainly natural sources such as emissions from vegetation. In particular, ferns have been recognized as strong emitters.