Seasonal patterns of gross N mineralization, respiration, and microbial biomass N in 3 alpine plant communities.

Gross N mineralization, respiration, and microbial biomass N were measured using soil from dry, moist, and wet meadow sites on Niwot Ridge at 3 times during the year: immediately following snowmelt, at approximately peak plant biomass, and following aboveground senescence. Microbial biomass N was measured on replicate soil cores from plots of each community, using the chloroform fumigation-extraction technique. Those cores were subsequently composited and subsamples were incubated at 15 degrees Celsius in the laboratory for measurement of CO2 evolution and 15N pool dilution-based estimations of gross mineralization