Abstract
Sedimental denitrification activities were determined by an acetylene inhibition technique with different treatments of samples. Each method was described as follows : (I) a sediment slurry was incubated with an insitu water in a glass bottle, (II) an intact sediment core and its overlying water were incubated in a glass column, (III) emitted N2O was collected in a glass cylinder put directly on the surface of sediment in the field.
Denitrification activities of a tidal sediment measured by the above procedures were 61-62, 33-39, 47-56 mg N·m-2d-1, respectively. Although the first method gave higher activity than the other two by the factor of 1.3-1.9, it has the advantage of treating multiple samples, because of needless of the complicated apparatuses for incubation. The results suggest that the simple glass bottle incubation using a sediment slurry is possibly used to asses sedimental denitrification, however, sufficient care must be taken in comparing its results the other methods.
