Sentences with phrase «anaerobic microsites»

Keiluweit, assistant professor in UMass Amherst's School of Earth and Sustainability, says the team's next steps include quantifying the amount of anaerobic microsites in different soil ecosystems and assessing how carbon stabilization in them is affected by variables such as the soil hydrologic regime, which is expected to change dramatically due to climate change.

«Soil researchers quantify an underappreciated factor in carbon release to the atmosphere: Research team shows anaerobic microsites» crucial role.»

Now biogeochemist Marco Keiluweit at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues elsewhere for the first time provide evidence that anaerobic microsites play a much larger role in stabilizing carbon in soils than previously thought.

Because these other stabilization mechanisms are likely much less vulnerable to disturbance than anaerobic microsites, our research suggests that the impact of climate or land use change may release greater amounts of carbon from soils than we expected.»

Anaerobic microsites in soil are microscopic habitats lacking oxygen in which microbes are limited in their ability to metabolize soil organic matter into climate - active CO2 that is released to the atmosphere.

Keiluweit explains, «Even though the presence of anaerobic microsites has long been known, this is the first study to assess their impact on Carbon stabilization.

They write, «We show that anaerobic microsites are important regulators of soil carbon persistence, shifting microbial metabolism to less efficient anaerobic respiration and selectively protecting otherwise bioavailable, reduced organic compounds such as lipids and waxes from decomposition.

For this work, Keiluweit and colleagues conducted controlled laboratory experiments in which they recreated anaerobic microsites and showed how they reduce the metabolism of organic matter and the release of CO2.