Figure 6

The importance of hotspots in a soil core. After measuring denitrification on the entire core (a), the core was split into three segments (b), which showed that most of the activity was occurring in the top segment. The top segment was then split into five sections (c), which showed that the majority of activity was occurring in the very top segment. This segment was dissected (d), which showed that 85% of the denitrification activity in the 5,190 g soil core was taking place in a 0.08 g piece of plant detritus. From Parkin (1987).