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Soil geochemistry as a driver of soil organic matter composition: insights from a soil chronosequence
(2021)Biogeosciences DiscussionsA central question in carbon research is how stabilization mechanisms in soil change over time with soil development and how this is reflected in qualitative changes in soil organic matter (SOM). To address this matter, we assessed the influence of soil geochemistry on bulk SOM composition along a soil chronosequence in California, USA, spanning 3 million years. This was done by combining data on soil mineralogy and texture from previous ...Working Paper -
Organic matter cycling along geochemical, geomorphic and disturbance gradients in forests and cropland of the African Tropics – Project TropSOC Database Version 1.0
(2021)Earth System Science Data DiscussionsThe African Tropics are hotspots of modern-day land use change and are, at the same time, of great relevance for the cycling of carbon (C) and nutrients between plants, soils, and the atmosphere. However, the consequences of land conversion on biogeochemical cycles are still largely unknown as they are not studied in a landscape context that defines the geomorphic, geochemical, and pedological framework in which biological processes take ...Working Paper -
Controls on heterotrophic soil respiration and carbon cycling in geochemically distinct African tropical forest soils
(2021)Soil DiscussionsHeterotrophic soil respiration is an important component of the global terrestrial carbon (C) cycle, driven by environmental factors acting from local to continental scales. For tropical Africa, these factors and their interactions remain largely unknown. Here, using samples collected along strong topographic and geochemical gradients in the East African Rift Valley, we study how soil chemistry and soil fertility, derived from the geochemical ...Working Paper -
Filling a key gap: a soil infrared library for central Africa
(2021)Soil DiscussionsInformation on soil properties is crucial for soil preservation, improving food security, and the provision of ecosystem services. Especially, for the African continent, spatially explicit information on soils and their ability to sustain these services is still scarce. To address data gaps, infrared spectroscopy has gained great success as a cost-effective solution to quantify soil properties in recent decades. Here, we present a ...Working Paper -
The role of geochemistry in organic carbon stabilization in tropical rainforest soils
(2021)Soil DiscussionsStabilization of organic carbon in soils (SOC) depends on several soil properties, including the soil weathering stage and the mineralogy of parent material. As such, tropical SOC stabilization mechanisms likely differ from those in temperate soils due to contrasting soil development. To better understand these mechanisms, we investigated SOC dynamics at three soil depths under pristine tropical african mountain forest along a geochemical ...Working Paper -
Nutrient limitations regulate soil greenhouse gas fluxes from tropical forests: evidence from an ecosystem-scale nutrient manipulation experiment in Uganda
(2021)Soil DiscussionsTropical forests contribute significantly to the emission and uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). However, studies on the soil environmental controls of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from African tropical forest ecosystems are still rare. The aim of this study was to disentangle the regulation effect of soil nutrients on soil GHG fluxes in a tropical forest in northwestern Uganda. Therefore, a large-scale ...Working Paper -
Assessing soil erosion of forest and cropland sites in wet tropical Africa using 239+240 Pu fallout radionuclides
(2020)Soil DiscussionsDue to the rapidly growing population in tropical Africa, a substantial rise in food demand is predicted in upcoming decades, which will result in higher pressure on soil resources. However, there is limited knowledge on soil redistribution dynamics following land conversion to arable land in tropical Africa that is partly caused by challenging local conditions for long-term landscape scale monitoring. In this study, fallout radionuclides ...Working Paper -
Patterns of microbial processes shaped by parent material and soil depth in tropical rainforest soils
(2020)Soil DiscussionsMicrobial processes are one of the key factors driving carbon (C) and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, and are strongly driven by the equilibrium between resource availability and demand. In deeply weathered tropical rainforest soils of Africa, it remains unclear whether patterns of microbial processes differ between soils developed from geochemically contrasting parent materials. Here we show that resource availability across ...Working Paper -
Continental-scale controls on soil organic carbon across sub-Saharan Africa
(2020)Soil DiscussionsEarlier studies have demonstrated that soil texture and geochemistry strongly affect soil organic carbon (SOC) content. However, those findings primarily rely on data from temperate regions with soil mineralogy, weathering status and climatic conditions that generally differ from tropical and sub-tropical regions. We investigated soil properties and climate variables influencing SOC concentrations across sub-Saharan Africa. A total of ...Working Paper -
CHLSOC: The Chilean Soil Organic Carbon database, a multi-institutional collaborative effort
(2019)Earth System Science Data DiscussionsOne of the critical aspects in modelling soil organic carbon (SOC) predictions is the lack of access to soil information which is usually concentrated in regions of high agricultural interest. In Chile, most soil and SOC data to date is highly concentrated in 25 % of the territory that has intensive agricultural or forestry use. Vast areas beyond those forms of land use have few or no soil data available. Here, we present a new database ...Working Paper