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Agricultural soils play an important role in the global carbon cycle. Depending on how they are managed, they may act as both a source and a sink of carbon and should therefore, be considered in the climate change debate. The objective of this work is to assess the short-term variabilities of soil respiration derived from different soil tillage systems: conventional tillage, reduced tillage and no tillage. During April and May 2010 the soil respiration was measured in short time intervals on two long-term soil tillage experiment sites in Lower Austria using a closed dynamic chamber system (SRC-1 and EGM-4, PP Systems). The present book offers the results of that experiment, as well as an interpretation of the most controlling and influencing factors of the measured soil respiration and its variations.

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Anna Wawra, born in 1985 in Schärding, Upper Austria, attained a Master´s Degree in "Natural Resources Management and Ecological Engineering" at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna, Austria, and Lincoln University, New Zealand.

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