Biodegradability continuum and biodegradation kinetics of natural organic matter described by the beta distribution

We followed a long-term (up to 503 days) microbial mineralization of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from lake water in a bioassay and described the kinetics of biodegradation with a new model based on a reactivity continuum approach. The biodegradability of DOC was expressed as the probability of biodegradation, which was assumed to follow a beta distribution. We compared the performance of our beta model to five earlier models: the simplest first order kinetic model, two G models, the power model and the gamma model. The simplest first order kinetic model described the decreasing microbial mineralization of DOC poorly (r 2 = 0.73), but the other models explained the observed kinetics of biodegradation well (r 2 > 0.95). When we assessed the extrapolation power of models beyond the length of the bioassay by reducing the amount of data, the predictive power of the G models was poor. Instead, the beta model predicted the biodegradation kinetics consistently and correctly based on even only three observations in time. The beta model provided also long-term predictions (up to 5,000 years) along the observed long-term mineralization trajectory of organic carbon in sediments. Additionally, the beta model formulated the biodegradability continuum of DOC, which was skewed towards low biodegradability. During the bioassay, the skew towards low biodegradability increased as the most biodegradable parts of DOC were consumed. The beta model describes the biodegradability continuum quantitatively and can predict biodegradation in a realistic manner, thus, improving our understanding about the biodegradability and the role of natural organic matter in the environment.