the experiment. The specific respiration activity or metabolic quotient
(qCO2)-calculated as the amount of CO2–C evolved per unit of
biomass C– was statistically higher in plots treated with the cattle
manure with respect to the rest of the treatments only after its first
application (S1, Table 4). Generally, the values of qCO2 were not
significantly affected by the applied treatments and they seemed
to reach a steady-state in the last two soil samplings (S4 and S5).