Labile biomass

This has led to research into identification of labile pools of organic matter (which make up a relatively small proportion of the total pool) that are more sensitive to changes in soil management or environmental conditions than total soil organic matter content. Examples of such pools include C and N held in the microbial biomass and in particulate organic matter and in water-soluble, easily-extractable and potentially mineralizable fractions (Haynes 2005). 

Ros M, Pascuala JA, Garciaa C, Hemandeza MT, Insam H (2006) Hydrolase activities, microbial biomass and bacterial community in a soil after long-term amendment with different composts. Soil Biol Biochem 38 3443-3452 Rovira P, Vallejo VR (2002) Labile and recalcitrant pools of carbon and nitrogen in organic matter decomposing at different depths in soil an acid hydrolysis approach. Geoderma 107 109-141... 

Sobczak, W. V. 1996. Epilithic bacterial responses to variations in algal biomass and labile dissolved organic carbon during biofilm colonization. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 15 143-154. 

In the preceding discussions, we assumed labile DOC and DON to be produced at rates y/c and y/N, respectively, without discussing their sources and how the production rate and the composition of the produced material would be expected to vary with food web structure. The important differences among different models can be illustrated by some examples. One potential model is that DOC production is an overflow mechanism occurring in mineral-nutrient-limited phytoplankton not able to use the photo-synthetically produced organic carbon for biomass production due to lack... 

There have been some attempts to find chemical or physical correlates of short-term consumption that can be used as indices of biological lability (Amon et al., 2001). For example, there is indication that bioavailability (i.e., in terms of milligrams bacterial biomass per milligrams of DOC consumed) is correlated to the elemental composition in terms of C, N, H, and O, to the aliphatic contents, and to the overall degree of reduction of the DOM (Sun et al., 1997 Hopkinson et al., 1998 Hunt et al., 1999). However, there is still no general index that is applicable to all different aquatic systems, and it is unlikely that a single index will be able to account for variation in the multiple factors that simultaneously determine DOM... 

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