Distribution and origin of soil organic matter in the Atacama Desert
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| Title: | Main Title: Distribution and origin of soil organic matter in the Atacama Desert |
| Description: | Abstract: The Atacama Desert is the oldest and driest desert on earth, nevertheless traces of life have been observed in several places, accumulating residues of organic matter (OM) on the desert surface, i.e. in its soil. We asked if these OM traces of life preferentially accumulate in topsoil, or whether also enrichment of OM in deeper subsoil layers appears. We also evaluated to which degree, spatial and vertical heterogeneity in the distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks depends on aridity, here displayed by distance to coast. We sampled an east-west directed transect with increasing distance to the coast and several replicates spanning the Atacama Desert from north to south, i.e. Codpa (18.4°S), Rio Tana (19.2°S), Quebrada Aroma (19.4°S), Yungay (24.6°S) and Paposo (25.1°S). With a nested sampling design (3>n<18) we addressed topsoil heterogeneity at each sampling site (n=433). For 13 of these sites soil profiles were dug to 0.8 to 3.9 m depth depending on soil thickness. This amounted to a total of 637 samples. Bulk density was taken for each site and depth of 15 cm. The SOC concentrations were determined for each sample by thermally resolved dry combustion (Soli TOC; Elementar Analysensysteme, Hanau, Germany DIN 19539GS). We found that with increasing distance to coast (2.3 to 86.8 km), SOC stocks decreased from 4.62±4.62 to 0.36±0.13 kg SOC m-2 in the 15 cm of topsoil with a minimum of 0.04±0.00 kg SOC m-2 at 49.2 km distance. Hence, traces of life were ubiquitously preserved both in the arid and hyper-arid desert areas. Intriguingly, relatively large amounts of soil organic matter were also found at depth below 15cm, adding an extra of 52.9 to 95.9 % of subsoil C to the topsoil SOC stock. Furthermore, the subsoil SOC concentrations peaked between 40 and 150 cm depth in the soil, irrespectively of the presence or absence of visible vegetation. Biomarker analyses are currently performed to reveal the origin of SOC found in the various depths. We conclude that C accrual in this arid to hyper-arid system shifts from the preferential C enrichment in topsoil to that in the subsoil, therewith providing the potential for deep(er) biosphere foodwebs and demonstrating the need to dig into soil for discovering traces of (active) life in comparable environments, including other planets such as Mars. |
Responsible Party
| Creators: | Ramona Mörchen (Author), Eva Lehndorff (Author), Ghazal Moradi (Author), Franko Arenas-Díaz (Author), Humay Rahimova (Author), Barbara Fuentes (Author), Erwin Klumpp (Author), Roland Bol (Author), Wulf Amelung (Author) |
| Publisher: | CRC1211 Database (CRC1211DB) |
| Publication Year: | 2019 |
Topic
| CRC1211 Topic: | Biology |
| Related Subproject: | B5 |
| Subject: | Keyword: Biogeochemistry of Soils |
File Details
| Filename: | DBG_Bern_2019.pdf |
| Data Type: | Event - Event |
| File Size: | 30.2 MB |
| Date: | Available: 28.08.2019 |
| Mime Type: | application/pdf |
| Data Format: | |
| Language: | English |
| Status: | Completed |
Constraints
| Download Permission: | Only Project Members |
| General Access and Use Conditions: | According to the CRC1211DB data policy agreement. |
| Access Limitations: | According to the CRC1211DB data policy agreement. |
| Licence: | None |
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Specific Information - Presentation
| Presenter: | Ramona Mörchen |
| Presentation Date: | 28th of August, 2019 |
| Presentation Type: | Talk |
| Event: | Jahrestagung der deutschen Bodenkundlichen Gesellschaft |
| Event Type: | Other |
| Event Location: | Bern, Swiss |
| Event Duration: | 24th of August, 2019 - 29th of August, 2019 |
Metadata Details
| Metadata Creator: | Ramona Mörchen |
| Metadata Created: | 02.09.2019 |
| Metadata Last Updated: | 02.09.2019 |
| Subproject: | B5 |
| Funding Phase: | 1 |
| Metadata Language: | English |
| Metadata Version: | V50 |
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| Page Visits: | 232 |
| Metadata Downloads: | 0 |
| Dataset Downloads: | 4 |
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