Bacterial immobilization and remineralization of N at different growth rates and N concentrations
An experiment was designed to resolve two largely unaddressed questions about the turnover of N in soils. One is the influence of microbial growth rate on mobilization and remineralization of cellular N. The other is to what extent heterotrophic immobilization of NO3- is controlled by the soil concentration of NH4+. Bacteria were extracted from a deciduous forest soil and inoculated into an aqueou