Measuring microbial uptake of nitrogen in nutrient-amended sandy soils—A mass-balance based approach

Soil microbial biomass N is commonly determined through fumigation-extraction (FE), and a conversion factor ( K EN) is necessary to convert extractable N to actual soil biomass N. Estimation of K EN has been constrained by various uncertainties including potential microbial immobilisation. We developed a mass-balance approach to quantify changes in microbial N storage during nutrient-amended incubation, in which microbial uptake is determined as the residual in a ‘mass-balance’ based on soil-water N before and after amended incubation. The approach was applied to three sandy soils of southwestern Australia, to determine microbial N immobilisation during 5-day incubation in response to supply of 2.323 mg C g −1, 100 μg N g −1 and 20 μg P g −1. The net N immobilisation was estimated to be 95–114 μg N g −1 in the three soils, equivalent to 82.7–85.1% of soil-water N following the amendment. Such estimation for microbial uptake does not depend on fumigation and K EN conversion, but for comparison purposes we estimated ‘nominal’ K EN values (0.11–0.14) for the three soils, which were comparable to previously reported K EN from soils receiving C and N amendment. The accuracy of our approach depends on the mass-balance equation and the integrated measurement errors of the multiple N pools, and was assessed practically through recoveries of added-N when microbial uptake can be minimised. Near-satisfactory recoveries were achieved under such conditions. Our mass-balance approach provides information not only about changes in the microbial biomass nitrogen storage, but also major N-pools and their fluxes in regulating soil N concentrations under substrate and nutrient amended conditions.