Biogenic NO emissions from forest and pasture soils: Relating laboratory studies to field measurements

Abstract

During September and October 1999, dynamic chamber measurements were carried out to determine nitric oxide (NO) fluxes from a primary forest soil and an old pasture in the Brazilian Amazon basin as part of the project “European Studies of Trace Gases and Atmospheric Chemistry as a Contribution to the Large‐Scale Biosphere‐Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia” (LBA‐EUSTACH). In addition, soil samples were collected from these two sites, and laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the NO production and consumption rate constants as functions of soil temperature and soil moisture. These laboratory results were converted into NO fluxes using a simple algorithm, which required additional information on the gas diffusion in soil, the soil bulk density, and the field conditions (soil temperature and soil moisture). Over the entire measurement period, the calculated and measured NO fluxes agreed well both for the forest (6.9 ± 2.9 and 5.0 ± 4.6 ng m−2 s−1, respectively) and for the pasture (0.67 ± 0.09 and 0.65 ± 0.37 ng m−2 s−1, respectively). Forest to pasture conversion decreased NO production and gas diffusion and resulted in smaller NO fluxes from pasture than forest soil.