Environmental drivers of soil phosphorus composition in natural ecosystems

Abstract

Soil organic and inorganic phosphorus (P) compounds can be influenced by distinctive environmental properties. This study aims to analyze soil P composition in natural ecosystems, relating organic (inositol hexakisphosphate, DNA and phosphonates) and inorganic (orthophosphate, polyphosphate and pyrophosphate) compounds with major temporal (weathering), edaphic and climatic characteristics. A dataset including 88 sites was assembled from published papers that determined soil P composition using one-dimensional liquid state 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of NaOH-EDTA extracts of soils. Bivariate and multivariate regression models were used to better understand the environmental properties influencing soil P. In bivariate relationships, trends for soil P compounds were similar for mineral and organic layers but with different slopes. Independent and combined effects of weathering, edaphic and climatic properties of ecosystems explained up to 78 % (inositol hexakisphosphates) and 89 % (orthophosphate) of variations in organic and inorganic P compounds across the ecosystems, likely deriving from parent material differences. Soil properties, particularly pH, total carbon, and carbon-to-phosphorus ratios, over climate and weathering mainly explained the P variation. We conclude that edaphic and climatic drivers regulate key ecological processes that determine the soil P composition in natural ecosystems. These processes are related to the source of P inputs, primarily determined by the parent material and soil forming factors, plant and microbe P cycling, the bio-physico-chemical properties governing soil phosphatase activity, soil solid surface specific reactivity, and P losses through leaching, and finally the P persistence induced by the increasing complexity of organic and inorganic P compounds as the pedogenesis evolves. Soil organic and inorganic P compounds respond differently to combinations of environmental drivers, which likely indicates that each P compound has specific factors governing its presence in natural ecosystems.