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a Dep. of Soil Science and Soil Geography, Univ. of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany
b 4104 El Macero Dr., Davis, CA, 95616 USA
wulf.amelung{at}uni-bayreuth.de
The turnover of soil organic carbon (SOC) in grasslands can be predicted as a function of climate, plant lignin content, texture, and kinetically defined C pools. Particle-size fractionation has been used to identify soil C pools. This study was conducted to investigate influences of climate on the dynamics of lignin in particle-size fractions. Composite samples were taken from the top 10 cm of 18 native grassland sites along temperature and precipitation transects from Central Saskatoon, Canada, to South Texas. Lignin-derived phenols were determined in the <2 µm (clay), 2- to 20-µm (silt), 20- to 250-µm (fine sand) and 250- to 2000-µm (coarse sand) size separates. With decreasing particle size the concentration of lignin-derived phenols decreased significantly from 72 g kg-1 SOC in the coarse sand fractions to 12 g kg-1 SOC in the clay fractions. Increasing phenolic acids to aldehyde ratios indicated that side chain oxidation proceeded as particle size decreased. Moreover, these ratios decreased in fractions <250 µm with increasing mean annual temperature (MAT) at the sites. This suggests that the degree of lignin decomposition decreased with increasing MAT, possibly because there was a lack of additional C sources, such as saccharides of root litter, which are needed for the cometabolic decay of lignin.
Abbreviations: (ac/al)S, mass ratio of acids to aldehydes of syringyl structural units • (ac/al)V, mass ratio of acids to aldehydes of the vanillyl structural units • ANOVA, analysis of variance • MAP, mean annual precipitation • MAT, mean annual temperature • SOC, soil organic carbon • SOM, soil organic matter • S/V, mass ratio of the syringyl to vanillyl units • VSC, the sum of vanillyl, syringyl, and cinnamyl phenolic CuO oxidation products
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