TY - JOUR
T1 - Processes driving seagrass soils composition along the western Mediterranean
T2 - The case of the southeast Iberian Peninsula
AU - Piñeiro-Juncal, Nerea
AU - Díaz-Almela, Elena
AU - Leiva-Dueñas, Carmen
AU - Deulofeu, Ona
AU - Frigola, Jaime
AU - Soler, Montserrat
AU - Martinez-Cortizas, Antonio
AU - Giralt, Santiago
AU - Garcia-Orellana, Jordi
AU - Mateo, Miguel Ángel
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by the LIFE BLUE NATURA project (LIFE14CCM/ES/000957). Carmen Leiva-Due?as was supported by a PhD scholarship funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FPU15/01934). This is a paper of the Group of Benthic Ecology 2014 SGR 120 in collaboration with the 2017 SGR 1588. We thank the Marine technicians Jose Miguel Rem?n, Agust?n Barraj?n and Diego Moreno, from the Andalusian Environmental Service, AMAyA, for sharing with us their thorough knowledge about the recent environmental History of the sites studied here.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/5/1
Y1 - 2021/5/1
N2 - Seagrasses are distributed all along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea being Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa the most common species. They promote sedimentation, leading to the formation of well-structured soils. Over the last decade, a growing attention has been paid to their role as CO2 sinks in the form of organic carbon (Corg) and to their use as environmental archives. However, most of the knowledge about pedogenetic processes in these soils refer to the rhizosphere. This study aims to understand seagrass soils biogeochemistry in the rhizosphere and below, which in turn can help to understand their long term formation processes. Fifteen cores were strategically sampled along a 350 km stretch of the Southeast Iberian coast, and analyzed for elemental composition (XRF core-scanning), magnetic susceptibility, Corg content and gran size distribution. The cores were dated by 210Pb and 14C-AMS techniques to estimate soil accretion. Principal component analysis was used to explore the main geochemical processes linked to soil formation. The results showed that terrestrial runoff plays a key role in meadow soil composition. Furthermore, Corg accumulation did not follow any general depth trend in our soil records, suggesting that temporal variation in Corg inputs is an important factor in determining carbon depth distribution within the soil. We obtained evidence that the establishment of well-developed, stable C. nodosa meadows in the Mediterranean Sea may be promoted by adverse environmental conditions to P. oceanica settlement. Metal's behavior within the meadow deposit and their interaction with organic matter and carbonates is unclear. The results presented in this paper highlight the importance of the influence of land-based inputs in the characteristics of seagrass meadow deposits, highly determining their Corg content, as well as the need for further studies on metal behavior, to understand their full potential as environmental records.
AB - Seagrasses are distributed all along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea being Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa the most common species. They promote sedimentation, leading to the formation of well-structured soils. Over the last decade, a growing attention has been paid to their role as CO2 sinks in the form of organic carbon (Corg) and to their use as environmental archives. However, most of the knowledge about pedogenetic processes in these soils refer to the rhizosphere. This study aims to understand seagrass soils biogeochemistry in the rhizosphere and below, which in turn can help to understand their long term formation processes. Fifteen cores were strategically sampled along a 350 km stretch of the Southeast Iberian coast, and analyzed for elemental composition (XRF core-scanning), magnetic susceptibility, Corg content and gran size distribution. The cores were dated by 210Pb and 14C-AMS techniques to estimate soil accretion. Principal component analysis was used to explore the main geochemical processes linked to soil formation. The results showed that terrestrial runoff plays a key role in meadow soil composition. Furthermore, Corg accumulation did not follow any general depth trend in our soil records, suggesting that temporal variation in Corg inputs is an important factor in determining carbon depth distribution within the soil. We obtained evidence that the establishment of well-developed, stable C. nodosa meadows in the Mediterranean Sea may be promoted by adverse environmental conditions to P. oceanica settlement. Metal's behavior within the meadow deposit and their interaction with organic matter and carbonates is unclear. The results presented in this paper highlight the importance of the influence of land-based inputs in the characteristics of seagrass meadow deposits, highly determining their Corg content, as well as the need for further studies on metal behavior, to understand their full potential as environmental records.
KW - Blue carbon
KW - Coastal zone
KW - Pedogenetical processes
KW - Seagrass sediments
KW - Subaquatic soils
KW - Geologic Sediments
KW - Alismatales
KW - Soil
KW - Carbon
KW - Mediterranean Sea
KW - Pedogenencal processes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099456101&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144352
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144352
M3 - Artículo
C2 - 33454472
AN - SCOPUS:85099456101
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 768
SP - 144352
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
M1 - 144352
ER -