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Pedosphere Material Cycling Lab
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A lab that traces the fate of carbon and nitrogen in soil through humic substances.
AboutAbout the lab
Uncovering how carbon accumulates in soil.
The lab studies how carbon and nitrogen move in environments centered on soil.
Much of the carbon and nitrogen in soil exists as humic substances, which are dark-colored macromolecular substances.
Soil is the largest carbon reservoir on land, and it is linked both to curbing global warming and to maintaining the soil fertility that produces food.
Key terms
- Humic substances
- A group of dark-colored macromolecular substances formed from components of plants and microbial cells, compost and manure, and similar materials. They are divided into humic acids, fulvic acids, and humin.
- Soil organic matter
- Organic matter contained in soil. Its main component is humic substances, and it is regarded as the essence of soil fertility.
- 14C age
- The number of years that have passed since a material was formed (age since formation). It is measured with an accelerator mass spectrometer.
ResearchResearch themes
Keeping the amount of soil organic matter high is considered important for both sustainable agriculture and global warming countermeasures. Focusing on the chemical structure of soil organic matter and its association with clay minerals, this lab has studied how organic matter becomes stable in soil.
Long-Term Dynamics of Humic Substances
The lab studied the relationship between the chemical structure of humic substances, the main component of soil organic matter, and their stability in soil (residence time). By analyzing the relationships among the degree of blackness of humic acids, 14C age, and condensed aromatic ring structures that resist decomposition, the lab showed that, under conditions where they are not physically or chemically protected, humic substances with a higher degree of blackness or aromaticity are less readily decomposed by microorganisms.
*Illustrative imageSoil Organic Matter Associated with Clay Minerals
The lab studied the process by which soil organic matter becomes stable through association with clay minerals, using adsorption and decomposition experiments on organic matter. It found that, in addition to coordination bonds, hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions appear to be important for this association, and that organic matter associated with clay minerals is not necessarily resistant to decomposition.
MembersFaculty
- ProfessorAkira Watanabe
VoicesStudent voices
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Чорнозем типовий” Serhey0211994 / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Soil Organic Matter Associated with Clay Minerals: “Organic matter 1” Wpsopo / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
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