Abstract

Soil moisture fluctuations impact soil iron cycle through changes in oxygen content and redox potential as well as controls on plants uptake strategies. Details of these interactions remain poorly understood, despite their importance on soil carbon and nutrient cycling. Here, we adopt a dynamic system approach to analyze the influence of soil moisture and plant dynamics on soil iron cycle. The mechanisms controlling the time evolution of oxidized and reduced iron, carbon, and oxygen content are explored combining model results and observations from Critical Zone experiments. The emergence of daily to seasonal redox fluctuations induced by hydroclimatic variability and plant response to variable iron contents is analyzed along with the effect of random forcing on long-term iron cycle variability.

Citation

Calabrese, Salvatore, and Amilcare M. Porporato (2018): Ecohydrological controls on iron redox fluctuations. American Geophysical Union 2018 Fall Meeting, Washington, DC, 10-14 Dec 2018.

This Paper/Book acknowledges NSF CZO grant support.