Does unsaturated flow drive soil carbon residence times?

Abstract:

Soil moisture is widely recognized as a driver of many important biogeochemical processes. For example, ecosystem productivity, microbial lifecycles, soil organic matter decomposition, soil secondary mineralogy, the development and persistence of redox gradients, and the export of dissolved carbon are all sensitive to soil-water content and potential. In turn, each of these processes is recognized as an important control on the turnover of soil organic carbon. These dependencies raise a key question: Is the flux of water through unsaturated soils the dominant driver of soil organic carbon turnover across broad spatial scales?

To better characterize the importance of soil moisture fluxes, we synthesize data from a number of soil studies to evaluate how total soil carbon storage, carbon residence time, and depth dependent gradients vary in relation to soil hydrologic fluxes. Specifically, we compare soil carbon storage and stability to measured and/or modeled infiltration ([precipitation + condensation] – [evapotranspiration + runoff]) and long-term soil water flux estimates from chloride mass balance, or other techniques. Additionally, we consider the interaction of soil age and hydrology, as the development of secondary mineral horizons during pedogenesis represents a critical threshold in both soil water flux and soil organic carbon turnover. We focus on data from 3 previously descried soil chronosequences, including the Santa Cruz, Mattole, and Merced terraces, which together span a wide range of age and soil moisture conditions. Across these sites, organic carbon accumulates to greater depths in the soils with highest infiltration but the relationship between turnover and soil moisture is not as straightforward. To help interpret these results, we compare field data against simulations of biogeochemical reactions involving soil carbon and the resulting isotopic gradients using the reactive transport model CrunchTope. Overall, this effort provides for an improved understanding of the role of soil moisture fluxes in controlling soil carbon turnover and is an essential step toward accurate predictions of soil responses to climate change.