Kenneth Fortino edited ResultsOMMineralization.tex  almost 8 years ago

Commit id: b07066f98ba3469fcdebe650dc0a23796329d46b

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The sediments added to the microcosms in the leached litter experiment had a dry bulk density between 0.10 and 0.11 g ml\textsuperscript{-1}, which was less than those used in the leaf experiment and likely due to the fact that the sediment slurry was not settled before being added to the microcosm. The organic matter content of the sediments used in the leached litter experiment was nearly identical to those used in the litter experiment and ranged between 12.1 and 12.4\%. As a result the sediments of each microcosm contained between 1.23 and 1.39 g of organic matter. The mesocosms that received leaf litter each received bettween 0.04 and 0.05 g of coarse organic matter with the added litter, which would be the equivalent of 10.8 to 13.5 g of coarse organic matter m\textsuperscript{-2}.  The sediments added to the microcosms in the leached litter SOD experiment had a dry bulk density of  In the lake from which the sediments were collected we measured between 57.3 and 163.0 g coarse organic matter m\textsuperscript{-2}, so the mesocosms used in the experiment contained at most 40\% of the coarse organic matter of the lake. However in the mesocosms all of the leaf litter was added to the surface of the sediments, while a portion of the leaf litter in the lakes was buried within the sediment.  The dissolved oxygen concentration of the overlying water in the bottles ranged from 80.09 to 275.80 $\mu mols$ O\textsubscript{2} L\textsuperscript{-1} with a median of 224.80 $\mu mols$ O\textsubscript{2} L\textsuperscript{-1}. The dissolved oxygen concentration varied significantly over the course of the incubation (p < 0.0001) and was the lowest on the initial day of the incubation (Fig. \ref{fig:DO_days}). Additionally, the bottles containing leaf litter had significantly lower dissolved oxygen concentrations (p = 0.002) but this was only evident on day 0 and day 2 of the incubation (Fig. \ref{fig:DO_days}).