COMPARISON OF KINETIC-MODELS FOR DESCRIBING NET SULFUR AND NITROGEN MINERALIZATION

The authors tested several kinetic models to describe net S and N mineralization observed in laboratory incubations of forested and cultivated soils. Models that used explicit statements of mineralization mechanisms were chosen, because these mechanistic models test hypotheses about the processes involved. Models were evaluated by nonlinear regression techniques with appropriate statistical tests. Linear regression was also evaluated as an expedient method for fitting the first-order model and calculating parameters without using complex statistical software. It was demonstrated the superiority of fitting models directly to incremental data.