ARS | Publication request: Analysis of microbial populations, denitrification, and nitrous oxide production in riparian buffers

Submitted to: American Society for Microbiology General Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: February 20, 2009
Publication Date: May 17, 2009
Citation: Ducey, T.F., Hunt, P.G., Ro, K.S., Lowrance, R.R. 2009. Analysis of microbial populations, denitrification, and nitrous oxide production in riparian buffers. In: Proceedings of 109th American Society of Microbiology General Meeting, May 17-21, 2009, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 2009 CDROM.

Technical Abstract: Riparian buffers are used extensively to protect water bodies from nonpoint source nitrogen pollution. However there is relatively little information on the impact of these buffers on production of nitrous oxide (N2O). In this study, we assessed nitrous oxide production in riparian buffers of the southeastern Coastal Plain from three different aspects. The first assessment was via denitrification enzyme activity (DEA) measured by acetylene inhibition. The second directly assessed nitrous oxide emission using a static chamber technique with a photoacoustic multi-gas analyzer (PAA). The third assessment was via soil microbial composition. Molecular techniques were used to compare the composition of bacterial communities in four riparian buffers with different DEA values. Microbial diversity was high but homogeneous among sites. Variations in DEA level appeared to be a product of gene regulation as opposed microbial population differences between sites, a result confirmed by PAA results showing rapid N2O production after nitrite addition to the soil.