Articles | Volume 17, issue 19
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-4785-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-4785-2020
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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Status: closed
Status: closed
AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment
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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

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
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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.
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