David L. Achat

The Use of Tracers to Investigate Phosphate Cycling in Soil-Plant Systems

The use of tracers is relevant to study the transformations of phosphorus (P) in the soil–plant system because (a) only a small fraction of the total soil P is rapidly circulating in this system, (b) P participates in many reactions in the soil, some occurring within a few seconds, others over years, and (c) P is distributed in many pools in the soil. This review presents the use of P radioisotopes (a) to probe pools and to study P transformations in soils, (b) to trace the fate of fertilizers in soil–plant systems, and (c) to assess the foraging strategies of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi for P. Finally, we discuss the potential of analyzing the oxygen isotopes bound to P to study soil P dynamics and the research needed to achieve this aim.

Forest soil carbon is threatened by intensive biomass harvesting

Forests play a key role in the carbon cycle as they store huge quantities of organic carbon, most of which is stored in soils, with a smaller part being held in vegetation. While the carbon storage capacity of forests is influenced by forestry, the long-term impacts of forest managers’ decisions on soil organic carbon (SOC) remain unclear. Using a meta-analysis approach, we showed that conventional biomass harvests preserved the SOC of forests, unlike intensive harvests where logging residues were harvested to produce fuelwood. Conventional harvests caused a decrease in carbon storage in the forest floor, but when the whole soil profile was taken into account, we found that this loss in the forest floor was compensated by an accumulation of SOC in deeper soil layers. Conversely, we found that intensive harvests led to SOC losses in all layers of forest soils. We assessed the potential impact of intensive harvests on the carbon budget, focusing on managed European forests. Estimated carbon losses from forest soils suggested that intensive biomass harvests could constitute an important source of carbon transfer from forests to the atmosphere (142–497 Tg-C), partly neutralizing the role of a carbon sink played by forest soils.

Forest floor contribution to phosphorus nutrition: experimental data

Abstract• Although accumulation of decomposing litter temporarily removes nutrients from active circulation, it creates a medium that is more suitable for nutrient uptake where soil conditions are unfavorable.• A pot experiment was conducted using labeling of isotopically exchangeable phosphate ions of the soil and applying the dilution principle to accurately assess the contribution of the forest floor to P nutrition of maritime pine seedlings (Pinus pinaster Aït.). Three-week-old maritime pine seedlings were planted in pots containing either mineral soil (MS) or mineral soil covered with a forest floor layer (MS+FF).• After 130 d, P uptake was still insignificant in the MS treatment while the P content of the seedlings in the MS+FF treatment increased tenfold with respect to the initial P content. In the latter treatment, the forest floor contributed 99.1% of the P supply to pine seedlings.• The higher P uptake from the forest floor than from the mineral soil may be explained by its lower ability to retain inorganic P, which enabled a higher concentration of inorganic P to be maintained in solution.Résumé• Bien que l’accumulation de litière en décomposition immobilise temporairement une partie des nutriments, elle crée un espace propice au prélèvement des nutriments là où le sol minéral est peu favorable.• La contribution des couches holorganiques à la nutrition en P de semis de pin maritime (Pinus pinaster Aït.) a été estimée sur base d’une expérience en pots combinée à un marquage des ions phosphate du sol minéral. Des semis de trois semaines ont été plantés dans des pots contenant soit uniquement du sol minéral (MS) ou soit du sol minéral recouvert par une couche de litière (MS+FF).• Après 130 jours, le prélèvement en P était toujours insignifiant dans le traitement MS alors que le contenu en P des semis du traitement MS+FF avait été décuplé par rapport au contenu initial. Dans ce traitement, la contribution des couches holorganiques à l’alimentation en phosphore des semis était de 99,1 %.• Le prélèvement en P plus important à partir des couches holorganiques peut être expliqué par leur faible capacité de rétention du P qui permet de maintenir une forte concentration en P dans la solution du sol.

Soil properties controlling inorganic phosphorus availability: general results from a national forest network and a global compilation of the literature

Incorporating the phosphorus (P) cycle in climate-carbon cycle models—or calibrating pedotransfer functions to predict available soil P—are important issues. To achieve them we need to improve our understanding of the P cycle by focusing on processes and on the factors which control P dynamics in soils. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the generality of the relationships between physical–chemical soil properties and the availability of inorganic P (i.e. the dynamics of phosphate ions at the solid-to-solution interface), and to test the predictive capacity of these relationships. We used the French permanent network of forest monitoring (102 forests with contrasting soil properties, called network dataset) and a global compilation of published data from different ecosystems (60 studies, mainly in forests, grasslands, or croplands, called compilation dataset). All studies used an isotopic dilution method to quantify the availability of inorganic P. Results showed generality of the dominant role of aluminum and iron oxides and organic carbon in controlling the dynamics of phosphate ions in acidic and non-acidic soils. Inversely, soil texture, pH and CaCO3 generally had no or only little effect. The control of inorganic P availability by oxides and organic carbon was confirmed by the compilation dataset, even in non-forest soils. Relationships obtained with the network dataset correctly predicted available soil inorganic P, suggesting that the dynamics of phosphate ions in soils could be simulated by including the main controlling soil properties in models. Our study provides predictive tools which could be included in diagnostic systems for the long-term management of soil fertility.

Soil parent material—A major driver of plant nutrient limitations in terrestrial ecosystems

Because the capability of terrestrial ecosystems to fix carbon is constrained by nutrient availability, understanding how nutrients limit plant growth is a key contemporary question. However, what drives nutrient limitations at global scale remains to be clarified. Using global data on plant growth, plant nutritive status, and soil fertility, we investigated to which extent soil parent materials explain nutrient limitations. We found that N limitation was not linked to soil parent materials, but was best explained by climate: ecosystems under harsh (i.e., cold and or dry) climates were more N-limited than ecosystems under more favourable climates. Contrary to N limitation, P limitation was not driven by climate, but by soil parent materials. The influence of soil parent materials was the result of the tight link between actual P pools of soils and physical-chemical properties (acidity, P richness) of soil parent materials. Some other ground-related factors (i.e., soil weathering stage, landform) had a noticeable influence on P limitation, but their role appeared to be relatively smaller than that of geology. The relative importance of N limitation versus P limitation was explained by a combination of climate and soil parent material: at global scale, N limitation became prominent with increasing climatic constraints, but this global trend was modulated at lower scales by the effect of parent materials on P limitation, particularly under climates favourable to biological activity. As compared with soil parent materials, atmospheric deposition had only a weak influence on the global distribution of actual nutrient limitation. Our work advances our understanding of the distribution of nutrient limitation at global scale. In particular, it stresses the need to take soil parent materials into account when investigating plant growth response to environment changes.

Phosphorus status of soils from contrasting forested ecosystems in southwestern Siberia: effects of microbiological and physicochemical properties

The Siberian forest is a tremendous repository of terrestrial organic carbon (C), which may increase owing to climate change, potential increases in ecosystem productivity and hence C sequestration. Phosphorus (P) availability could limit the C sequestration potential, but tree roots may mine the soil deep to increase access to mineral P. Improved understanding and quantification of the processes controlling P availability in surface and deep soil layers of Siberian forest ecosystems are thus required. The objectives of the present study were to (1) evaluate P status of surface and deep soil horizons from different forest plots in southwestern Siberia and (2) assess the effects of physicochemical soil properties, microbiological activity and decomposition processes on soil P fractions and availability. Results revealed high concentrations of total P (879–1042 mg kg −1 in the surface mineral soils) and plant-available phosphate ions. In addition, plant-available phosphate ions accumulated in the subsoil, suggesting that deeper root systems may mine sufficient available P for the trees and the potentially enhanced growth and C sequestration, may not be P-limited. Because the proportions of total organic P were large in the surface soil layers (47–56% of total P), we concluded that decomposition processes may play a significant role in P availability. However, microbiological activity and decomposition processes varied between the study plots and higher microbiological activity resulted in smaller organic P fractions and consequently larger available inorganic P fractions. In the studied Siberian soils, P availability was also controlled by the physicochemical soil properties, namely Al and Fe oxides and soil pH.

Biomass and nutrients in tree root systems-sustainable harvesting of an intensively managed Pinus pinaster (Ait.) planted forest.

To develop sources of renewable energy and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increasing attention has been given to the extraction of forest biomass, especially in the form of harvest residues. However, increasing the removal of biomass, and hence nutrients, has raised concerns about the sustainability of site fertility and forest productivity. The environmental cost of harvesting belowground biomass is still not fully understood. The objectives of this study were to (i) estimate the stocks of belowground biomass that potentially can be collected; (ii) measure the nutrient (N, P, K, Ca, Mg) concentrations of the different root compartments (stumps, coarse and thin roots); and to (iii) quantify the biomass and nutrient exports under different scenarios, including harvests of above and belowground compartments. The study was carried out on Pinus pinaster stands located in south‐western France. Results showed that roots could be a significant fuelwood resource, particularly at forest clear cutting. Negative relationships between root diameter and root nutrient concentration were observed, independently of root function or tree age. Such relationships can be used to accurately simulate nutrient concentrations in roots as well as nutrient exports. Combining our original results on roots with previously published data on the aboveground compartments showed that nutrient losses were higher in canopy harvest scenarios than in root harvest scenarios. This was mainly due to high nutrient concentrations of needles. We concluded that stump and root harvest could be sustainable in our study context, conversely to foliage harvest. Because thin roots have higher nutrient concentrations than coarse roots and the proportion of thin roots increased with an increase in the distance from the tree, collecting roots only in the close vicinity of the stumps should limit nutrient exports (particularly N) without unnecessarily reducing fuelwood biomass.

Phosphorus in agricultural soils: drivers of its distribution at the global scale

Abstract Phosphorus (P) availability in soils limits crop yields in many regions of the World, while excess of soil P triggers aquatic eutrophication in other regions. Numerous processes drive the global spatial distribution of P in agricultural soils, but their relative roles remain unclear. Here, we combined several global data sets describing these drivers with a soil P dynamics model to simulate the distribution of P in agricultural soils and to assess the contributions of the different drivers at the global scale. We analysed both the labile inorganic P (PILAB), a proxy of the pool involved in plant nutrition and the total soil P (PTOT). We found that the soil biogeochemical background corresponding to P inherited from natural soils at the conversion to agriculture (BIOG) and farming practices (FARM) were the main drivers of the spatial variability in cropland soil P content but that their contribution varied between PTOT vs. PILAB. When the spatial variability was computed between grid cells at half‐degree resolution, we found that almost all of the PTOT spatial variability could be explained by BIOG, while BIOG and FARM explained 38% and 63% of PILAB spatial variability, respectively. Our work also showed that the driver contribution was sensitive to the spatial scale characterizing the variability (grid cell vs. continent) and to the region of interest (global vs. tropics for instance). In particular, the heterogeneity of farming practices between continents was large enough to make FARM contribute to the variability in PTOT at that scale. We thus demonstrated how the different drivers were combined to explain the global distribution of agricultural soil P. Our study is also a promising approach to investigate the potential effect of P as a limiting factor for agroecosystems at the global scale. &NA; Numerous processes drive the global spatial distribution of phosphorus (P) in agricultural soils, but their relative roles remain unclear. Thanks to a modelling approach, we found that almost all of the global spatial variability in total soil P in cropland soils (PTOT) could be explained by the distribution of the soil biogeochemical background (that determines the P content of soils at the conversion to agriculture, BIOG), while both BIOG and farming practices (FARM) explained the spatial variability in inorganic labile P (PILAB) (˜40% and ˜60%, respectively). Figure. No caption available.

Future challenges in coupled C–N–P cycle models for terrestrial ecosystems under global change: a review

Climate change has consequences for terrestrial functioning, but predictions of plant responses remain uncertain because of the gaps in the representation of nutrient cycles and C–N–P interactions in ecosystem models. Here, we review the processes that are included in ecosystem models, but focus on coupled C–N–P cycle models. We highlight important plant adjustments to climate change, elevated atmospheric CO2, and/or nutrient limitations that are currently not—or only partially—incorporated in ecosystem models by reviewing experimental studies and compiling data. Plant adjustments concern C:N:P stoichiometry, photosynthetic capacity, nutrient resorption rates, allocation patterns, symbiotic N2 fixation and root exudation (phosphatases, carboxylates) and the effect of root exudation on nutrient mobilization in the soil rhizosphere (P solubilization, biochemical mineralization of organic P and priming effect). We showed that several plant adjustments could be formulated and calibrated using existing experimental data in the literature. Finally, we proposed a roadmap for future research because improving ecosystem models necessitate specific data and collaborations between modelers and empiricists.