Water Balance Defines a Threshold in Soil Chemistry at a Global Scale

Abstract:

Carefully constrained studies in model landscapes demonstrate the existence of pedogenic thresholds, where small changes in external forcing lead to large changes in soil properties. One important threshold defines the relationship between water balance, the availability of nutrient cations, and soil pH. Across rainfall gradients, the loss of alkali and alkaline earth cations occurs abruptly at a critical water-balance. At this threshold, the removal of exchangeable base cations by leaching outstrips their production from weathering, causing a drop in soil pH. This leaching threshold has never been characterized at a global scale, in part because of the tremendous sampling effort required to overcome the confounding effects of rock chemistry, soil age, and topography outside of carefully constrained environmental gradients. We compile an extensive database of soil pH measurements to show that there is a mean global leaching threshold near an annual water balance of zero. Where evaporative demand exceeds precipitation, soil pH is buffered near values of 8.1, but where precipitation exceeds evaporative demand, soil pH rapidly collapses to values near 5.0. Deviations from the threshold can be explained in terms of climatic variability, soil age, and rock chemistry. Regions with arid climates and acid soil pH correspond to zones of intense, periodic leaching (e.g. strongly monsoonal climates), or to highly weathered continental surfaces that have permanently lost their stock of cations (e.g. Australia). Regions with humid climates and neutral soil pH correspond to young landscapes, or to soils derived from base-rich rock (e.g. the Pacific Rim volcanic belt). These results demonstrate that the leaching threshold is a dominant feature of the Earth’s surface, with the potential to affect both natural and human-dominated ecosystems. For instance: the leaching threshold might impose a step-function on the terrestrial response to CO2 fertilization, the capacity of soils to stabilize carbon, and the effect of nitrate addition on soil pH. While these responses may manifest differently in regions that deviate from the threshold, outliers from the global pattern show how variation in climate, soil age, and rock chemistry can modify soil properties, and hence ecosystem function.