Earth's Systems / Biological processes / Terrestrial ecosystem functioning / Living soil system / Soil gas exchange and redox / Iron redox cycling and the enzyme latch in wet soil

Iron redox cycling and the enzyme latch in wet soil

How iron-reducing bacteria and oxygen cycle iron between Fe3+ and Fe2+ in wet soil, and how this links to phenol accumulation and slow decomposition in peat.

Boundary: where this process starts

Starts with: Water fills pores, gas diffuses about 10,000 times more slowly than in air, interior microsites go anoxic

Boundary: where it ends

Ends after: Anoxia suppresses phenol oxidase; phenolics build up and inhibit hydrolases (enzyme latch); Fe(II) diffuses to oxic zones and reoxidises, forming new oxides that re-sorb phosphate and carbon

What am I looking at? The concepts on every map

Participant: Someone or something that takes part in a process or influences it: a plant, a microbe, a river, a machine, a force. Participants are the rows of a map.
Resource: Something a step uses or uses up: water, oxygen, sunlight, a tool. Each step has an arrow down to the resources it uses.
Step: One thing that happens in a process. Every step has at least one participant and carries evidence.
Decision fork: A step where the process can go several ways. Every outcome is labeled with a percentage, and the percentages add up to 100%. It is not limited to yes or no.
Loop: A line that carries the process back to an earlier step. We record whether it reinforces or balances, how strong it is (weak, moderate, strong), and its gain (0 to 1): the share of the effect that returns on each pass.
Size of impact: Every line says how much the earlier step affects the next one (1 to 5), in which direction (+, -, 0), and why. Thicker lines mean bigger impact.
Evidence: The support for a claim: a source and what it shows. Every step, line, change and vote needs it. Click any step or line to read its evidence.
Boundary: Where a process starts and where it ends. Every process, and every subprocess, has a start and an end.
Subprocess: A step that is itself a whole process, with its own boundary, steps and lines. Click a step marked ↘ to open it. Subprocesses nest as deep as the evidence goes.
Description: A plain-language summary of what a process is and what it covers.
Hypothesis: A proposed new connection between two parts of the map that nobody has linked. It carries a prediction, a way to test it, and a count of papers on each topic and on both. It is an unverified idea until someone tests it.

Every step, with its evidence

The same information as the map, as a list you can search and share. Click a participant or resource to see everywhere it appears.

Water fills pores, gas diffuses about 10,000 times more slowly than in air, interior microsites go anoxic

Soil water Soil pores Oxygen Water Pore space