Shifts in desulfonating bacterial communities along a soil chronosequence in the forefield of a receding glacier

peer-reviewedForefields of receding glaciers are unique and sensitive environments representing natural soil chronosequences where sulfate availability is assumed to be a limiting factor. Bacterial mineralization of organo-sulfur is an important sulfate-providing process in soils. We analyzed the diversity of sulfonate desulfurizing (desulfonating) bacteria in the Damma glacier forefield on the basis of the key gene asfA by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and clone libraries. The community structure and sequence diversity of desulfonating bacteria differed significantly between forefield soils deglaciated in the 1990s and the 1950s. Soil age had a strong effect on the desulfonating rhizosphere communities of Agrostis rupestris, but only little impact on the ones from Leucanthemopsis alpina. AsfA affiliated to Polaromonas sp. was predominantly found in the more recent ice-free soils and the corresponding rhizospheres of A. rupestris while a group of unidentified sequences was found to be dominating the matured soils and the corresponding rhizospheres of A. rupestris. The desulfonating bacterial diversity was not affected by varying levels of sulfate concentrations. The level of asfA diversity in recently deglaciated soils suggests that desulfonating bacteria are a critical factor in sulfur cycling with defined groups dominating at different stages of soil formation.SUBMITTE

Measurement of the spin structure of the deuteron in the DIS region

We present a new measurement of the longitudinal spin asymmetry Ad and the spin-dependent structure function g(1)(d) of the deuteron in the range 1 < Q(2) < 100 GeV2 and 0.004 < x < 0.7. The data were obtained by the COMPASS experiment at CERN using a 160 GeV polarised muon beam and a large polarised (LiD)-Li-6 target. The results are in agreement with those from previous experiments and improve considerably the statistical accuracy in the region 0.004 < x < 0.03. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Measurement of the I=1 /2 Kpi\u80 S -wave amplitude from Dalitz plot analyses of eta_c -->\u86\u92KKbar pi\u80 in two-photon interactions

We study the processes γγ→K0SK±π∓ and γγ→K+K-π0 using a data sample of 519 fb-1 recorded with the BABAR detector operating at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- collider at center-of-mass energies at and near the Υ(nS) (n=2, 3, 4) resonances. We observe ηc decays to both final states and perform Dalitz plot analyses using a model-independent partial wave analysis technique. This allows a model-independent measurement of the mass-dependence of the I=1/2 Kpi\u80 S-wave amplitude and phase. A comparison between the present measurement and those from previous experiments indicates similar behavior for the phase up to a mass of 1.5 GeV/c2. In contrast, the amplitudes show very marked differences. The data require the presence of a new a0(1950) resonance with parameters m=1931±14±22 MeV/c2 and Γ=271±22±29 MeV