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Facilitated destabilization of physicochemically protected soil organic matter by root-derived low-molecular-weight organic acids

  • Soils, Sec 1 • Soil Organic Matter Dynamics and Nutrient Cycling • Research Article
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A Correction to this article was published on 30 March 2022

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Abstract

Purpose

Root-derived low-molecular-weight organic acids (LMWOAs) can impact the decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM) after being released into soils. However, the influence of individual LMWOA (e.g., oxalic acid) inputs on the destabilization of physicochemically protected SOM remains largely unknown.

Methods

Using artificial roots in a firmly controlled rhizosphere system, we daily added oxalic acid solutions to soils collected from two subalpine coniferous forests (a 70‐year‐old spruce plantation and a 200‐year‐old spruce‐fir dominated forest) and incubated the soils for over 25 days.

Results

The addition of oxalic acid significantly decreased the concentrations of iron bound in metal–organic complexes (Fe-MOCs), aluminum bound in metal–organic complexes (Al-MOCs), iron bound in short-range order phases (Fe-SROs), and iron bound in short-range order phases (Al-SROs) by 35%, 13%, 16%, and 30%, respectively, across the two forest soils. This result indicated that the oxalic acid addition promoted the destabilization of physicochemical-protected SOM. This destabilization of protected SOM was mainly caused by breaking crosslinking between carboxylic groups and multivalent cations and the release of aromatic carbon (C) from mineral-organic associations, as indicated by the concurrently decreased zeta potential and the prominently featured resonances assigned to aromatic functional groups in the corresponding spectra of the near edge X-ray absorption fine structure after the addition of oxalic acid. In addition, compared to that of the spruce plantation, the addition of oxalic acid induced greater changes in the metal pools (Fe and Al) bound in MOCs and SROs in the spruce-fir forest, which indicated that the oxalic acid-induced destabilization of physicochemical-protected SOM might also be regulated by native soil properties.

Conclusions

Our study demonstrates that the input of LMWOAs to soils could stimulate the destabilization of physicochemical-protected SOM, which is presumably involved in the disruption of mineral-organic associations by breaking the crosslinking bonds and releasing aromatic C. The destabilization of physicochemically protected SOM may accelerate SOM decomposition, and thus, the input of LMWOAs to soils has important ecological implications for the biogeochemical cycle in terrestrial ecosystems.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the BSRF for supporting NEXAFS spectroscopic analyses.

Funding

This study was supported jointly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31960271) and the Science and Technology Foundation of Guizhou Province, China (No. [2020]1Y075, [2020]1Y166 and [2020]1Z007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Eco-Environmental Engineering, Guizhou Minzu University, Guiyang, 550025, China

    Yuanshuang Yuan, Lijuan Chen, Zhen Yang & Jing Liu

  2. Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Ziliang Zhang

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  1. Yuanshuang Yuan
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Correspondence to Yuanshuang Yuan.

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Yuan, Y., Zhang, Z., Chen, L. et al. Facilitated destabilization of physicochemically protected soil organic matter by root-derived low-molecular-weight organic acids. J Soils Sediments 22, 1677–1686 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-022-03188-x

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