Fig. 3: Dynamics of soil 13C15N-cyanate consumption in two contrasting neutral soils (pH = 7.4) (“tracer experiment”).
From: Cyanate is a low abundance but actively cycled nitrogen compound in soil
13C15N-cyanate was added to a sterile (i.e., abiotic control) and non-sterile (a) grassland soil and (b) arable soil, and incubations were stopped after 0, 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, and 90 min. To obtain biotic cyanate consumption over time, the non-sterile samples were corrected for abiotic loss of cyanate derived from the sterile samples. Dynamics of cyanate consumption over time for the corrected non-sterile soils and sterile soils were described by fitting a first-order exponential decay curve and the exponential coefficient was used to calculate half-life (t1/2) of the 13C15N-cyanate pool. Shown are average values ±1SE (n = 3).
