Ideas and perspectives: The same carbon behaves like different elements – an insight into position-specific isotope distributions

He, Yuyang; Cao, Xiaobin; Bao, Huiming

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-4785-2020

Articles | Volume 17, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-4785-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-4785-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 19

Ideas and perspectives

|

02 Oct 2020

Ideas and perspectives |

| 02 Oct 2020

Ideas and perspectives: The same carbon behaves like different elements – an insight into position-specific isotope distributions

Yuyang He, Xiaobin Cao, and Huiming Bao

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Final revised paper (published on 02 Oct 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 02 Jun 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of He et al. Ideas and Perspectives', Anonymous Referee #3, 20 Jun 2020
- AC1: 'Responses to RC1', Yuyang He, 02 Aug 2020
RC2: 'Report on “Ideas and perspectives: Same carbon different elements – an insight into position-specific isotope patterns within a single compound” by He et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Jun 2020
- AC2: 'Responses to RC2', Yuyang He, 02 Aug 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (06 Aug 2020) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by Yuyang He on behalf of the Authors (08 Aug 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (13 Aug 2020) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by Yuyang He on behalf of the Authors (17 Aug 2020) Manuscript

Post-review adjustments

AA: Author's adjustment | EA: Editor approval

AA by Yuyang He on behalf of the Authors (24 Sep 2020) Author's adjustment Manuscript

EA: Adjustments approved (30 Sep 2020) by Yakov Kuzyakov

Short summary

Different carbon sites in a large organic molecule have different isotope compositions. Different carbon sites may not have the chance to exchange isotopes at all. The lack of appreciation of this notion might be blamed for an unsettled debate on the thermodynamic state of an organism. Here we demonstrate using minerals, N₂O, and acetic acid that the dearth of exchange among different carbon sites renders them as independent as if they were different elements in organic molecules.