THEORETICAL ANALYSES OF SOIL TEXTURE EFFECTS ON ORGANIC-MATTER DYNAMICS

Soil organic C and N tend to increase and mineralisation rates decreas e with clay content. We show how these observations can be explained w ithin the framework of the continuous quality theory by letting the qu ality dependence of decomposer growth rate depend on clay concentratio n. Theoretical predictions are shown to agree with a number of empiric al findings on both stores of C and N and N mineralisation rates from various ecosystems. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.