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 9

Relationship between soil ammonium and nitrate in relation to the total mineralized N accumulated throughout 15 weeks of incubation in forest and pastures.

Parameter	Depth (cm)	Site
		Forest	YP	OP
%Ammonium/	0–5	98.2 ± 3.7^a	99.4 ± 0.6^a	99.6 ± 0.3^a
%Nitrate/	0–5	1.8 ± 3.7^a	0.6 ± 0.6^a	0.4 ± 0.3^a

Mean values ± standard deviation. Different lowercase letters indicate significant differences between sites (). YP: 5-year-old pasture; OP: 18-year-old pasture. = mineralized nitrogen accumulated throughout 15 weeks of incubation.