| Abstract: | Variability of sulfate sorption in a sandy Gleyic Podzol under a pine stand In acid forest soils sulfate can be stored by sorption processes. We studied the vertical heterogeneity and the horizontal variability of sulfate sorption in a sandy forest soil under a pine stand. Disturbed soil samples were taken from the horizons of a Gleyic Podzol (vertical heterogeneity). From a 120-m transect, 25 soil samples were taken from depth increment 35—50 cm and 65—80 cm at 5-m intervals by means of a hand auger (horizontal variability). In batch experiments, sulfate sorption isotherms were measured for all profile and transect samples. The Freundlich equation is suitable to describe the individual isotherms. The sulfate sorption isotherms show considerable differences in the horizons of the profile, systematic relations between the isotherm parameters and soil properties are not obvious. In order to quantify the spatial variability of the sulfate sorption isotherms, a scaling technique is used. The spatial distribution of scale factors for depth 35—50 cm along the transect reveals a periodicity of about 17 m length. The same recurrent pattern is also identified in the spatial distribution of the cumulative sulfate deposition by canopy throughfall along the transect, and in the spatial distribution of contents of iron and aluminium oxides soluble in oxalic acid at depth level 35—50 cm. This does, however, not refer to organic carbon content and pH at this depth. From these results it is concluded that in this soil at depth 35—50 cm oxide contents are related to the amount of sulfate deposition by throughfall. In spatial ranges with high sulfate and thus acid deposition, oxide contents of the soil are decreased by accelerated podzolization, and therefore, also the sulfate sorption of the soil is low in these ranges. The period length of this recurrent pattern of about 17 m is probably only an apparent period length that results from aliasing, because a very probably real periodicity of 3—4 m length, related to the canopy edge distribution of the pine trees along the transect, is sampled at an interval of 5 m. In the subsoil (65—80 cm depth) such relations could not be detected. |
