Decomposition of organic matter in soils

Scientific leaders: Gwenaëlle Lashermes <gwenaelle.lashermes@inrae.fr> (INRAE, UMR FARE, Reims) and Hugues Clivot <hugues.clivot@inrae.fr> (INRAE, UMR FARE, Reims).

• Théo Baudet (master's internship from March to September 2023)

Théo Baudet (Reims Champagne-Ardenne University) did his master's internship in INRAE at UMR FARE (Reims) from March to September 2023. He was supervised by Gwenaëlle Lashermes (INRAE, UMR FARE, Reims) and Hugues Clivot (INRAE, UMR FARE, Reims).

Within the framework of the COLLECT-OR project, Théo studied data collected from soil incubation experiments on the decomposition of diverse plant residues and associated carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) mineralization. He simulated mineralization from C (342 residue incubation experiments) and N (252 residue incubation experiments) with the STICS residue decomposition module (named OM_NRM_2001_basic) which is integrated into the VSoil platform (and using updated parameters defined in Justes et al., 2009). VSoil team members helped in the preparation of the numerous input data and the launch of the large number of simulations which were made possible owing to dedicated R scripts. Théo then evaluated the predictive capabilities of the module by comparing simulations with observed data and finally analysed model error to help identifying some variables that could further potentially improve the decomposition model. At the beginning of this work, Théo and Hugues Clivot attended a training session on the use of the VSoil platform.