Jens-Arne Subke

Jens-Arne worked at SEI York. Following his PhD, he spent 2 years at the Second University of Naples, where he worked with Prof. F. Cotrufo on issues of soil CO2 efflux partitioning.

Jens-Arne’s work included experiments with isotopically labelled (13C) litter material to determine the amount of CO2 from litter decomposition and interactions between rhizosphere, bulk soil, and litter decomposition. A further focus was the development of a respiration system that measures soil CO2 efflux at constant chamber CO2 concentration.

The motivation for this development is the capture of the isotopic composition of soil respired CO2 , which is sensitive to concentration gradients that are inherent to conventional chamber systems.

His work at SEI York concentrated on the fate of ozone in a plant-soil system. It involves a novel experimental approach, in which plant-soil systems are fumigated with isotopically labelled ozone (18O).

The aim is to trace the flux of this pollutant to individual components within the plant and the soil. This work is done in close cooperation with groups at the universities of Newcastle, Bradford and Bristol.