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Quantification of vertical solid matter transfers in soils during pedogenesis by a multi-tracer approach

  • Soils, Sec 2 • Global Change, Environ Risk Assess, Sustainable Land Use • Research Article
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Abstract

Purpose

Vertical transfer of solid matter in soils (bioturbation and translocation) is responsible for changes in soil properties over time through the redistribution of most of the soil constituents with depth. Such transfers are, however, still poorly quantified.

Materials and methods

In this study, we examine matter transfer in four eutric Luvisols through an isotopic approach based on 137Cs, 210Pb(xs), and meteoric 10Be. These isotopes differ with respect to chemical behavior, input histories, and half-lives, which allows us to explore a large time range. Their vertical distributions were modeled by a diffusion-advection equation with depth-dependent parameters. We estimated a set of advection and diffusion coefficients able to simulate all isotope depth distributions and validated the resulting model by comparing the depth distribution of organic carbon (including 12/13C and 14C isotopes) and of the 0–2-μm particles with the data.

Results and discussion

We showed that (i) the model satisfactorily reproduces the organic carbon, 13C, and 14C depth distributions, indicating that organic carbon content and age can be explained by transport without invoking depth-dependent decay rates; (ii) translocation partly explains the 0–2-μm particle accumulation in the Bt horizon; and (iii) estimates of diffusion coefficients that quantify the soil mixing rate by bioturbation are significantly higher for the studied plots than those obtained by ecological studies.

Conclusions

This study presents a model capable of satisfactorily reproducing the isotopic profiles of several tracers and simulating the distribution of organic carbon and the translocation of 0–2-μm particles.

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Acknowledgments

This research was conducted in the framework of the Agriped project (ANR-10-BLANC-605) supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR). M. Jagercikova received a PhD grant from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). The authors are grateful to Dr. Frédéric Golay, Dr. Cédric Galusinski, and Dr. Gloria Faccanoni for their suggestions regarding numerical modeling; to Patrick Signoret for the carbon stable isotope analyses; to Dr. Bruno Mary, Dr. David Montagne, and Nicolas Brunet for providing the soil bulk density data; to the Agriped team for its contribution to sampling; and to the INRA of Mons-en-Chaussée, Grignon, and Arvalis for providing access to their long-term experimental sites and the associated data. M. Arnold, G. Aumaître, and K. Keddadouche are thanked for their valuable assistance during 10Be measurement at the ASTER AMS national facility (CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence), which is supported by the INSU/CNRS, the ANR through the “Projets thématiques d’excellence” program for the “Equipements d’excellence” ASTER-CEREGE action (ANR-10-EQPX-24-1), IRD, and the CEA. This is an LSCE contribution no. 2016-5885.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS, College de France, IRD, Coll France, INRA, CEREGE, Aix-Marseille Université, 13545, Aix en Provence, France

    Marianna Jagercikova, Sophie Cornu, Didier Bourlès & Jérôme Balesdent

  2. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE/IPSL), UMR8212 (CEA-CNRS-UVSQ), Université Paris-Saclay, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

    Olivier Evrard & Christine Hatté

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  1. Marianna Jagercikova
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  2. Sophie Cornu
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  3. Didier Bourlès
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  4. Olivier Evrard
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  5. Christine Hatté
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  6. Jérôme Balesdent
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Correspondence to Sophie Cornu.

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Jagercikova, M., Cornu, S., Bourlès, D. et al. Quantification of vertical solid matter transfers in soils during pedogenesis by a multi-tracer approach. J Soils Sediments 17, 408–422 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-016-1560-9

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