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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 4(6)

Colloidal matter in water extracts from forest soils

Alexander Dreves A C , Nils Andersen A , Pieter M. Grootes A , Marie-Josée Nadeau A and Carl-Dieter Garbe-Schönberg B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Leibniz Laboratory for Radiometric Dating and Stable Isotope Research, University of Kiel, Max-Eyth-Straße 11-13, D-24118 Kiel, Germany.

B Institute of Geosciences, University of Kiel, Ludewig-Meyn-Straße 10, D-24118 Kiel, Germany.

C Corresponding author. Email: adreves@leibniz.uni-kiel.de

Environmental Chemistry 4(6) 424-429 https://doi.org/10.1071/EN07057
Submitted: 30 August 2007  Accepted: 5 November 2007   Published: 6 December 2007

Environmental context. Little is known about the proportion of tiny dispersed particles and true solutions in soil water although the distinction has a major influence on transport processes of organic matter, fertiliser and pollutants in soils and thus, e.g., on carbon storage, and its role in global warming. Our study has found a noticeable amount of tiny particles (range 17 nm to 1.0 μm) in filtered soil water, that have a different chemical composition and a lower bioavailability of their organic components in comparison to the soluble part. This significant occurrence and the ecological relevance of colloids for the transport and storage of soil constituents highlights the need to partition soil water content into ‘particulate’ and ‘dissolved’ since the access to soil pores determines particle transport.

Abstract. Water-extracted organic matter (WEOM) is widely used as a surrogate for natural organic matter in soil water in the investigation of soil carbon dynamics. Information about the dissolved or colloidal nature of the organic matter is scarce since dissolved organic matter (DOM) is simply operationally defined by filtration: ‘DOM is what passes through the filter’. Water extracts of two topsoil horizons from both a deciduous (Steinkreuz) and a coniferous (Rotthalmünster) forest, located in Bavaria (Germany), were filtered through a 1-μm quartz filter and analysed regarding the amount of colloids in the range ~17 nm to 1.0 μm, the chemical composition and the radiocarbon concentration of both the colloidal and the dissolved fraction separated by high-speed centrifugation. Up to 13.9 wt-% of the total charge of the water extracts belongs to the colloidal fraction. The colloidal fraction has a higher relative proportion of metals and older organic C than the dissolved fraction. This demonstrates the dual nature of WEOM and the need for a more careful definition of DOM.

Additional keywords: colloids, dissolved organic matter, metals, radiocarbon, water extracts.


Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by grants of the German Science Foundation within the priority program 1090 ‘Soils as sources and sinks for CO2 – mechanisms and regulation of carbon stabilisation in soils’. We thank the members of the Leibniz laboratory for their help at sample processing and for AMS analysis, and Siegfried Wolfram, Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, University of Kiel, for providing assistance with the high-speed centrifugation. The assistance of Karin Kißling with ICP-OES analyses and of Karen Fiedler with sample pretreatment are gratefully acknowledged. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their comments which helped us to improve the manuscript.


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