Abstract
The cycling and volatile loss of N derived from cattle urine at upland and lowland sites within the shortgrass steppe of eastern Colorado was studied, using15N-labelled urea as an N source. Losses of NH 30 were determined by direct measurement and by difference. Losses were higher from coarse (27% summer, 12% winter) than from fine textured (0–2%) soils. Immobilization and plant uptake of N accounted for significant amounts of added N. Extrapolating our plot measurements to a typical pasture, using spatially and temporally stratified urine deposition data, losses from upland sites were calculated to be 0.016 g N · m-2 · y-1, while losses from lowland sites were negligible. This resulted in an average loss of 0.011 g N · m-2 · y-1 for a pasture divided 70:30 between uplands and lowlands. The loss of urine N calculated assuming no spatial stratification would be sevenfold higher (0.076 g N · m-2 · y-1). Losses of NH 30 from urine, animal biomass removal, and NH2O loss totaled only 0.07 g N · m-2 · y-1 , or about 25% of wet deposition input. We calculated a potential loss of NH 30 from senescing vegetation of 0.26 g N · m-2 · y-1, an order of magnitude larger than all other losses combined.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adamsen FJ, Reeder JD (1983) A comparison of diffusion and distillation methods for preparing samples for15N analyses. Soil Science Society of America Journal 47: 612–613.
Ball R, Keeney DR, Theobald PW, Nes P (1979) Nitrogen balance in urine-affected areas of a New Zealand pasture. Agronomy Journal 71: 309–314.
Bolin B, Crutzen PJ, Vitousek PM, Woodmansee RG, Goldberg ED, Cook RB (1983) Interactions of biogeochemical cycles. Pages 1–40 in B Bolin and RB Cook, editors. The major biogeochemical cycles and their interactions. john Wiley & Sons, New York.
Campbell CA, Myers RJK, Vatchpoole VR, Vallis I, Weier KL (1984) Laboratory study of transformation and recovery of urea-N in three Queensland soils. Australian Journal of Soil Research 22: 433–441.
Carran RA, Roger Ball P, Theobald PW, Collins MEG (1982) Soil nitrogen balances in urine-affected areas under two moisture regimes in Southland. New Zealand Journal of Experimental Agriculture 10: 377–381.
Clark FE (1977) Internal cycling of15nitrogen in shortgrass prairie. Ecology 58: 1322–1333.
Crutzen PJ, (1983) Atmospheric interactions — homogeneous gas reactions of C, N, and S containing compounds. Pages 67–114 in B Bolin and RB Cook, editors. The major biogeochemical cycles and their interactions. John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Ernst JW, Massey HF (1960) The effects of several factors on volatiliation of ammonia formed from urea in the soil. Soil Science Society of America Proceedings 24: 87–90.
Farquhar GD, Firth PM, Wetselaar R, Weir B (1980) On the gaseous exchange of ammonia between leaves and the environment: Determination of the ammonia compensation point. Plant Physiology 66: 710–714.
Farquhar GD, Wetselaar R, Firth PM (1979) Ammonia volatilization from senescing leaves of maize. Science 203: 1257–1258.
Ferguson RB, Kissel DE, Koelliker JK, Basel W (1984) Ammonia volatilization from surface-applied urea: Effect of hydrogen ion buffering capacity. Soil Science Society of America Journal 48 (2): 578–582.
Floate MJS (1981) Direct and indirect effects of grazing by large herbivores on nitrogen cycling in agricultural ecosystems. In FE Clark and T Rosswell, editors. Terrestrial nitrogen cycles: Processes, ecosystem strategies and management impacts. Ecology Bulletin (Stockholm) 33: 585–602.
Freney JR, Simpson JR, Denmead OT (1981) Ammonia volatilization. In FE Clark and T Rosswell, editors. Terrestrial nitrogen cycles: Processes, ecosystem strategies and management impacts. Ecology Bulletin (Stockholm) 33: 391–302.
Gisclard JB (1945) A modified beaded column: For absorbing gases and mists. Industrial Medicine 14: 366–367.
Hilder EJ, Mottershead BE (1963) The redistribution of plant nutrients through free-grazing sheep, Australian Journal of Science 26: 88–89.
Limmer AW, Steel KW (1983) Effect of cow urine upon denitrification. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 15: (4): 409–412.
Lockyer DR (1984) A system for the measurement in the field of losses of ammona through volatilization. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 35: 837–848.
Mosier AR, Stillwell M, Parton WJ, Woodmansee RG (1981) Nitrous oxide emissions from a native shortgrass prairie. Soil Science Society of America Journal 45 (3): 617–619.
Mosier AR, Parton WJ (1985) Denitrification in a shortgrass prairie: A modelling approach. Pages 441–452 in DG Caldwell, JA Brierly, CL Brierly, editors. Planetary Ecology: Selected papers from the Sixth International Symposium on Environmental Biogeochemistry. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.
National Atmospheric Deposition Project. 1982. Annual Data Summary Precipitation Chemistry in the United States. Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Nelson DW, Sommers LE (1980) Total nitrogen analysis of soil and plant tissues. Journal of the Association of Official Analytical Chemists 63 (4): 770–778.
O'Toole P, Morgan MA, McAleese DM (1982) Effects of soil properties, temperature and urea concentration on patterns and rates of urea hydrolysis in some Irish soils. Irish Journal of Agricultural Research 21: 185–197.
Parton WJ, Lauenroth WK, Smith FM (1981a) Water loss from a shortgrass steppe. Agricultural Meteorology 24: 97–109.
Parton WJ, Gould WD, Adamson FJ, Torbit S, Woodmansee RG (1981b) NH3 Volatilization Model. In: Frissel MJ, van Veen JA (Editors). Simulation of nitrogen behaviour of soil-plant systems. Centre for Agricultural Publishing and Documentation, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Reynolds CM, Wolf DC, Armbruster JA (1985) Factors related to urea hydrolysis in soils. Soil Science Society of America Journal 49: 104–107.
Schimel D, Stillwell MA, Woodmansee RG (1985a) Biogeochemistry of C, N, and P in a soil catena of the shortgrass steppe. Ecology 66 (1): 276–282.
Schimel DS, Kelly EF, Yonker C, Aguilar R, Heil RD (1985b) Effects of erosional processes on nutrient cycling in semiarid landscapes. Pages 571–580 in DG Caldwell, JA Brierly and CL Brierly editors. Planetary Ecology: Selected papers from the Sixth International Symposium on Environmental Biogeochemistry. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.
Senft RL, Rittenhouse LR, Woodmansee RG (1983) The use of regression models to predict spatial patterns of cattle behavior. Journal of Range Management 36 (5): 553–557.
Senft RL, Rittenhouse LR, Woodmansee RG (1985) Factors influencing patterns of cattle grazing behavior on shortgrass steppe. Journal of Range Management 38 (1): 82–87.
Soil Conservation Service (1977) Soil taxonomy: A basic system of soil classification for making and interpreting soil surveys. Agriculture Handbook No. 436. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., USA.
Stillwell MA (1983) The effect of bovine urine on the nitrogen cycle of a shortgrass prairie. Ph.D. Dissertation Colorado State University, Ft Collins Colorado, USA.
Stillwell MA, Woodmansee RG (1981) Chemical transformations of urea-nitrogen and movement of nitrogen in a shortgrass prairie soil. Soil Science Society of America Journal 45 (5): 893–898.
Vallis I, Harper LA, Catchpoole VR, Weier KL (1982) Volatilization of ammonia from urine patches in a subtropical pasture. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 33: 97–107.
Woodmansee RG (1978) Additions and losses of nitrogen in grassland ecosystems. BioScience 28 (7): 448–453.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schimel, D.S., Parton, W.J., Adamsen, F.J. et al. The role of cattle in the volatile loss of nitrogen from a shortgrass steppe. Biogeochemistry 2, 39–52 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02186964
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02186964