Talking SMAAC: A New Tool to Measure Soil Respiration and Microbial Activity

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dc.contributor.authorGyawali, Ayush Joshien
dc.contributor.authorLester, Brandon J.en
dc.contributor.authorStewart, Ryan D.en
dc.contributor.departmentSchool of Plant and Environmental Sciencesen
dc.date.accessioned2019-07-24T17:18:55Zen
dc.date.available2019-07-24T17:18:55Zen
dc.date.issued2019-05-29en
dc.description.abstractSoil respiration measurements are widely used to quantify carbon fluxes and ascertain soil biological properties related to soil microbial ecology and soil health, yet current methods to measure soil respiration either require expensive equipment or use discrete spot measurements that may have limited accuracy, and neglect underlying response dynamics. To overcome these drawbacks, we developed an inexpensive setup for measuring CO2 called the soil microbial activity assessment contraption (SMAAC). We then compared the SMAAC with a commercial infrared gas analyzer (IRGA) unit by analyzing a soil that had been subjected to two different management practices: grass buffer vs. row crop cultivation with tillage. These comparisons were done using three configurations that detected (1) in situ soil respiration, (2) CO2 burst tests, and (3) substrate induced respiration (SIR), a measure of active microbial biomass. The SMAAC provided consistent readings with the commercial IRGA unit for all three configurations tested, showing that the SMAAC can perform well as an inexpensive yet accurate tool for measuring soil respiration and microbial activity.en
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work was provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant #69-3A75-14-260 and also provided in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Resources Conservation Service Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station and the Hatch Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture.en
dc.format.extent8 pagesen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationJoshi Gyawali A, Lester BJ and Stewart RD (2019) Talking SMAAC: A New Tool to Measure Soil Respiration and Microbial Activity. Front. Earth Sci. 7:138. doi: 10.3389/feart.2019.00138en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2019.00138en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/91948en
dc.identifier.volume7en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherFrontiersen
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectsubstrate induced respirationen
dc.subjectsoil microbial activityen
dc.subjectsoil healthen
dc.subjectenvironmental sensingen
dc.subjectsoil CO₂en
dc.titleTalking SMAAC: A New Tool to Measure Soil Respiration and Microbial Activityen
dc.title.serialFrontiers in Earth Scienceen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten

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