Agriculture is the main source of terrestrial emissions of N2O, a potent greenhouse gas and the main cause of ozone layer depletion. The reduction of N2O into N2 by microorganisms carrying the nitrous oxide reductase gene (nosZ) is the only biological process known to eliminate this greenhouse gas. Recent studies showed that a previously unknown clade of N2O-reducers was related to the capacity...

[1] N2O, CH4 and CO2 soil-atmosphere exchange and controlling environmental factors were studied for a 3-month period (dry-wet season transition) at the Kakamega Rain forest, Kenya, Africa, using an automated measurement system. The mean N2O emission was 42.9 ± 0.7 mg N m 2 h 1 (range: 1.1–324.8 mg N m 2 h ). Considering the duration of dry and wet season the annual N2O emission was estimated a...

This study is to explore effects of nitrogen application and straw incorporation on abundance of relevant microbes and CH 4 and N2O fluxes in a midseason aerated rice paddy field. Fluxes of CH 4 and N2O were recorded, and abundance of relevant soil microbial functional genes was determined during rice-growing season in a 6-year-long fertilization experiment field in China. Results indicate that...

[1] We analyzed N2O isotopomer ratios (distribution of isotopes within N2O molecules) in the eastern tropical North Pacific. The N2O isotopomer ratios indicate the contribution of denitrification in the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ, 600 m in depth) in the western North Pacific, which is not consistent with the widely accepted nitrification hypothesis. Our models indicate that the N2O yield per mole...

To date, few studies are conducted to quantify the effects of reduced ammonium (NH4+) and oxidized nitrate (NO3-) on soil CH4 uptake and N2O emission in the subtropical forests. In this study, NH4Cl and NaNO3 fertilizers were applied at three rates: 0, 40 and 120 kg N ha(-1) yr(-1). Soil CH4 and N2O fluxes were determined twice a week using the static chamber technique and gas chromatography. S...

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas. In North China, vegetable fields are amended with high levels of N fertilizer and irrigation water, which causes massive N2O flux. The aim of this study was to determine the contribution of microbial processes to N2O production and characterize isotopic signature effects on N2O source partitioning. We conducted a microcosm study that combined natu...

BACKGROUND A three-year field experiment was conducted to examine the responses of corn yield and soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emission to various management practices in middle Tennessee. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The management practices include no-tillage + regular applications of urea ammonium nitrate (NT-URAN); no-tillage + regular applications of URAN + denitrification inhibitor (NT-in...

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is one of the key greenhouse and ozone (O3) depleting gas, constituting 7% of the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. On a molecular basis, N2O has 310 and 16 times higher global warming potential than that of CO2 and CH4 respectively over a 100-year period. To develop mitigation tools for N2O emissions, it is imperative to understand the processes of nitrogen (N) transformatio...

Nutrient deposition to tropical forests is increasing, which could affect soil fluxes of nitrous oxide (N2O), a powerful greenhouse gas. We assessed the effects of 35–56 months of moderate nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) additions on soil N2O fluxes and net soil N-cycling rates, and quantified the relative contributions of nitrification and denitrification to N2O fluxes. In 2008, a nutrient man...

323 During pasture grazing, freshly harvested herbage (litterfall) is dropped onto soils from the mouths of dairy cattle, potentially inducing nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. Although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends accounting for N2O emissions from arable crop residues in national inventories, emissions from the litterfall of grazed pasture systems are not recogn...