Effects of Land Use Change and Seasonality of Precipitation on Soil Nitrogen in a Dry Tropical Forest Area in the Western Llanos of Venezuela

Table 7

Net nitrogen mineralized by week throughout 15 weeks of incubation in the soil forest and pastures.

Week	Depth (cm)	Net nitrogen mineralized, g m^−2
		Forest	YP	OP
2	0–5	2.4 ± 0.6^a	2.1 ± 1.0^a	4.0 ± 0.4^b
4		4.4 ± 1.7^a	1.9 ± 1.8^b	4.3 ± 2.6^a
6		0.8 ± 0.5^a	1.1 ± 0.8^a	2.4 ± 0.5^b
8		1.1 ± 0.4^a	0.9 ± 0.7^a	1.9 ± 0.6^b
10		0.6 ± 0.3^a	0.9 ± 0.4^ab	1.1 ± 0.4^b
12		0.4 ± 0.2^a	0.6 ± 0.3^a	0.8 ± 0.2^b
15		0.2 ± 0.3ª	0.2 ± 0.2^a	0.3 ± 0.3^a

Mean values ± standard deviation. Different lowercase letters indicate significant differences between sites at the same week (). YP: 5-year-old pasture; OP: 18-year-old pasture.