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Chemical and Biological Gradients along the Damma Glacier Soil Chronosequence, Switzerland
Auteur(s)
Bernasconi, Stefano M.
Bauder, Andreas
Bourdon, Bernard
Brunner, Ivano
Buenemann, Else
Christl, Iso
Edwards, Peter
Farinotti, Daniel
Frey, Beat
Frossard, Emmanuel
Furrer, Gerhard
Gierga, Merle
Goeransson, Hans
Guelland, Kathy
Hagedorn, Frank
Hajdas, Irka
Hindshaw, Ruth
Ivy-Ochs, Susan
Jansa, Jan
Jonas, Tobias
Kiczka, Mirjam
Kretzschmar, Ruben
Lemarchand, Emmanuel
Luster, Joerg
Magnusson, Jan
Venterink, Harry Olde
Ploetze, Michael
Reynolds, Ben
Smittenberg, Rienk H.
Staehli, Manfred
Tamburini, Federica
Tipper, Edward T.
Wacker, Lukas
Welc, Monika
Wiederhold, Jan G.
Zeyer, Josef
Zimmermann, Stefan
Zumsteg, Anita
Date de parution
2011
In
Vadose Zone Journal
Vol.
3
No
10
De la page
867
A la page
883
Résumé
Soils are the product of a complex suite of chemical, biological, and physical processes. In spite of the importance of soils for society and for sustaining life on earth, our knowledge of soil formation rates and of the influence of biological activity on mineral weathering and geochemical cycles is still limited. In this paper we provide a description of the Damma Glacier Critical Zone Observatory and present a first synthesis of our multi disciplinary studies of the 150-yr soil chronosequence. The aim of our research was to improve our understanding of ecosystem development on a barren substrate and the early evolution of soils and to evaluate the influence of biological activity on weathering rates. Soil pH, cation exchange capacity, biomass, bacterial and fungal populations, and soil organic matt er show clear gradients related to soil age, in spite of the extreme heterogeneity of the ecosystem. The bulk mineralogy and inorganic geochemistry of the soils, in contrast, are independent of soil age and only in older soils (>100 yr) is incipient weathering observed, mainly as a decreasing content in albite and biotite by coincidental formation of secondary chlorites in the clay fraction. Further, we document the rapid evolution of microbial and plant communities along the chronosequence.
Type de publication
Resource Types::text::journal::journal article
