Accessibility navigation


Effect of air-drying pre-treatment on the characterization of forest soil carbon pools

Villada, A., Vanguelova, E. I., Verhoef, A. and Shaw, L. (2016) Effect of air-drying pre-treatment on the characterization of forest soil carbon pools. Geoderma, 265. pp. 53-61. ISSN 0016-7061

[img] Text - Accepted Version
· Please see our End User Agreement before downloading.

290kB

It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing.

To link to this item DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2015.11.003

Abstract/Summary

Archived soils could represent a valuable resource for the spatio-temporal inventory of soil carbon stability. However, archived soils are usually air-dried before storage and the impact of a drying pretreatment on physically and chemically-defined C fractions has not yet been fully assessed. Through the comparison of field-moist and corresponding air-dried (at 25oC for 2 weeks) forest soil samples, we examined the effect of air-drying on: a) the quantity and the quality of cold- (CWEC) and hot-water (HWEC) extractable C and b) the concentration of C in physically isolated fractions (free- and intra-aggregate light and organo-mineral). Soil samples were collected from the organic (O) and mineral (A and B) horizons of three different forest soils from southeastern England: (i) Cambisol under Pine (Pinus nigra); (ii) Cambisol under Beech (Fagus sylvatica) and (iii) Gleysol under oak (Quercus robur). CWEC concentrations for dry samples were up to 2 times greater than for corresponding field moist samples and had significantly (p < 0.001) higher phenolic content. However, the effect of drying pretreatment on HWEC, its phenolic content was not significant (p > 0.05) for most samples. Dried soils had significantly (p < 0.001) higher concentrations of free light-C while having lower concentrations of intra-aggregate-C when compared to moist samples (p < 0.001). However, fine silt and clay fractions were not significantly affected by the drying pretreatment (p=0.789). Therefore, based on the results obtained from gleysol and cambisol forest soils studied here, C contents in hot-water extractions and fine particle size physical fractions (< 25µm) seem to be robust measurements for evaluating C fractions in dried stored forest soils. Further soil types should be tested to evaluate the wider generality of these findings.

Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Divisions:Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Walker Institute
Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science
Interdisciplinary centres and themes > Soil Research Centre
ID Code:46098
Publisher:Elsevier

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

University Staff: Request a correction | Centaur Editors: Update this record

Page navigation