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Association of organic matter with iron and aluminum across a range of soils determined via selective dissolution techniques coupled with dissolved nitrogen analysis

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Abstract

Strong correlations of soil total organic carbon (OC) with iron and aluminum phases reported frequently make it important to quantify these organic matter (OM) associations, but selective extractants sometimes contain OC. Soil nitrogen is often predominantly organic and might serve as a proxy for OM. We therefore investigated nitrogen associations with Fe and Al using several selective extractants that use reductive, complexation, and alkaline approaches. Total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) correlated strongly with extracted Fe and Al across seventeen samples, including highly- and weakly-weathered soils, iron-rich ultrabasic soils, podzolic, and volcanic soils. Typically a quarter to a third of total soil nitrogen was dissolved by the various extractions, though higher fractions (up to 60%) were found in spodic-horizon and volcanic surface-horizon samples. Similar proportions were found for OC, using three OC-free extractants, indicating that TDN provides a useful surrogate for assessing OM partitioning via extractants that contain OC. Use of TDN:metal ratios in extractant solutions allows estimation of extracted OM that could have been sorptively associated with metal oxide/hydroxides and poorly-crystalline aluminosilicates. These ratios were often high in extractions targeted at these adsorbents, and imply that usually most of the extracted TDN consists instead of organo–metal complexes. The dynamics of these complexes may have stronger control on accumulation/remobilization of soil OM than those of metal oxyhydroxides and poorly-crystalline aluminosilicates.

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Acknowledgments

We thank S. Hiradate for sharing some of the volcanic samples, R. Daimun, W. Umetsu, and M. Kajiura for lab assistance, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. We also thank N. Yamaguchi and S. Hiradate for valuable discussions. Initial part of the project was supported by postodoctoral fellowship from Center for Ecological Research at Kyoto University, and conducted by the use of laboratory facilities provided by Dr. N. Majalap. This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B21310016) of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Carbon and Nutrient Cycling Division, 3-1-3, Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8604, Japan

    Rota Wagai

  2. School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Walpole, ME, 04573, USA

    Lawrence M. Mayer

  3. Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Kanehiro Kitayama

  4. National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources Inventory Center, 3-1-3, Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8604, Japan

    Yasuhito Shirato

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  1. Rota Wagai
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Wagai, R., Mayer, L.M., Kitayama, K. et al. Association of organic matter with iron and aluminum across a range of soils determined via selective dissolution techniques coupled with dissolved nitrogen analysis. Biogeochemistry 112, 95–109 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-011-9652-5

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