Elizabeth W. Sulzman

A laboratory comparison of two methods used to estimate the isotopic composition of soil δ13CO2 efflux at steady state

The stable isotopic composition of soil (13)CO(2) flux is important for monitoring soil biological and physical processes. While several methods exist to measure the isotopic composition of soil flux, we do not know how effective each method is at achieving this goal. To provide clear evidence of the accuracy of current measurement techniques we created a column filled with quartz sand through which a gas of known isotopic composition (-34.2 per thousand) and concentration (3,000 ppm) diffused for 7 h. We used a static chamber at equilibrium and a soil probe technique to test whether they could identify the isotopic signature of the known gas source. The static chamber is designed to identify the source gas isotopic composition when in equilibrium with the soil gas, and the soil probe method relies on a mixing model of samples withdrawn from three gas wells at different depths to identify the gas source. We sampled from ports installed along the side of the sand column to describe the isotopic and concentration gradient as well as to serve as a control for the soil probe. The soil probe produced similar isotopic and concentration values as the control ports, as well as Keeling intercepts. The static chamber at equilibrium did not identify the source gas but, when applied in a two end-member mixing model, did produce a similar Keeling intercept produced from the control ports. Neither of the methods was able to identify the source gas via the Keeling plot method probably because CO(2) profiles did not reach isotopic steady state. Our results showed that the static chamber at equilibrium should be used only with a Keeling plot approach and that the soil probe is able to provide estimates of uncertainty for the isotopic composition of soil gas as well as information pertinent to the soil profile.

Cation exchange capacity of density fractions from paired conifer/grassland soils

The cation exchange capacity (CEC) of a soil depends on the type and amount of both mineral and organic surfaces. Previous studies that have sought to determine the relative contribution of organic matter to total soil CEC have not addressed differences in soil organic matter (SOM) composition that could lead to differences in CEC. The objectives of this study were (1) to compare the CEC of two distinct SOM pools, the “light fraction (LF)” composed of particulate plant, animal, and microbial debris, and the “heavy fraction (HF)” composed of mineral-bound organic matter; and (2) to examine the effects of differences in aboveground vegetation on CEC. Soil samples were collected from four paired grassland/conifer sites within a single forested area and density fractionated. LF CEC was higher in conifer soils than in grassland soils, but there was no evidence of an effect of vegetation on CEC for the HF or bulk soil. LF CEC (but not HF CEC) correlated well with the C concentration in the fraction. The mean CEC of both fractions (per kg fraction) exceeded that of the bulk soil; thus, when the LF and HF CEC were combined mathematically by weighting values for each fraction in proportion to dry mass, the resulting value was nearly twice the measured CEC of bulk soil. On a whole soil basis, the HF contributed on average 97% of the CEC of the whole soil, although this conclusion must be tempered given the inflation of CEC values by the density fractionation procedure.