15N Tracing of Microbial Assimilation, Partitioning and Transport of Fertilisers in Grassland Soils

Alice received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Bristol. In the latter years of her degree she became fascinated by how organic chemistry and stable isotopes could be combined to probe environmental processes. This led her to pursue a Ph.D., in collaboration with Wessex Water, the goal of which was to help mitigate nitrogen fertiliser pollution problems in drinking water supplies. After completing her Ph.D., Alice pursued postdoctoral research at Rothamsted Research, North Wyke, where she was part of a NERC-funded project investigating nitrogen cycling and gaseous nitrogen losses from sheep urine patches on upland soils.

Introduction.- Sites, sampling, materials and methods.- Compound-specific amino acid 15N stable isotope probing of nitrogen assimilation by the soil microbial biomass using gas chromatography-combustion- isotope ratio mass spectrometry.- Biosynthetic routing, rates and extents of microbial fertiliser nitrogen assimilation in two grazed grassland soils.- Microbial fertiliser nitrogen assimilation in the field as compared with the laboratory incubation experiments.- 15N tracing of the partitioning and transport of nitrate under field conditions.- Overview and future work.