Pore-scale insights to the rate of organic carbon degradation and biofilm formation under variable hydro-biogeochemical conditions in soils and sediments

Abstract:

Biogeochemical processes that control microbial growth, organic carbon degradation, and CO₂ production and migration are fundamentally occur at the pore scale. In this presentation, we will describe our recent results of a pore-scale simulation research to investigate: 1) how moisture content and distribution affects oxygen delivery, organic carbon availability, and microbial activities that regulate the rate of organic carbon degradation and CO₂ production in aerobic systems; and 2) how pore-scale reactive transport processes affect local microbial growth, biofilm formation, and overall rate of microbial reactions in anoxic systems. The results revealed that there is an optimal moisture content for aerobic bacterial respiration and CO2 production. When moisture is below the optimal value, organic carbon availability limits its degradation due to diffusion and osmotic stress to bacterial reactivity; and when moisture is above the optimal value, oxygen delivery limits microbial respiration. The optimal moisture condition is, however, a function of soil texture and physical heterogeneity, bioavailable soil organic carbon, and microbial community function. In anoxic and saturated system, simulation results show that biofilm preferentially forms in concave areas around sand particles and macro aggregates where cross-directional fluxes of organic carbon and electron acceptors (e.g., nitrate) favor microbial growth and attachment. The results provide important insights to the establishment of constitutive relationships between the macroscopic rates of soil organic carbon degradation and moisture content, and to the development of biogeochemical reactive transport models that incorporate biofilm structures and physio-chemical heterogeneity in soils and sediments.