Carbohydrate and amino acid composition of dissolved organic matter leached from soil

Low molecular weight organic substances (LMWOS) in soil and soil solution include mainly amino acids, carboxylic acids, and carbohydrates. Due to their high bioavailability they play a crucial role in the cycles of C and nutrients in soils. The variety of soil processes that involve LMWOS requires identifying their composition to elucidate reactions and transformations. In most studies, LMWOS are extracted under artificial conditions, e.g. batch experiments, which may overestimate the actual concentrations. This study measures the composition of carbohydrates and amino acids in solution of a Haplic Luvisol leached in a column experiment. A combined system for simultaneous leaching and blowout of CO2 was used to estimate LMWOS decomposition. 14C-labeled glucose was added as a highly sensitive tracer to control the efficiency of the LMWOS extraction by leaching and to estimate LMWOS decomposition during leaching. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), optimized for soil extracts, was used to analyze LMWOS composition. For HPLC optimization, different preparations of leached solutions (filtration vs. centrifugation, and drying vs. no-drying) were compared. For sugar determination, drying had no influence on the solution concentrations. In contrast, amino acid concentrations significantly decreased by drying LMWOS eluted substances. Combining the HPLC identification of eluted substances with 14C tracer application revealed that about 5% of the glucose could be leached unchanged within 786 min (13.1 h), whereas about 84% remained in the soil, 9% were decomposed to CO2, and 2% were transformed to other LMWOS and recovered in the soil solution. The total amino acid concentration (TAC) in soil solution was about 8.2 μmol l−1, dominated by alanine (14.4% of TAC), glycine (13.4%), glutamic acid (9.9%), serine (9.4%), and leucine (9.3%). The total carbohydrate concentration was about 2.4 μM, dominated by glucose (29.9%), glucuronic acid (26.8%), and galacturonic acid (17.3%). Ratios of hexoses to pentoses, amino sugars glucosamine to galactosamine, and neutral sugars to uronic acids were determined. All three parameters pointed to the dominant influence of plants as the source of LMWOS in the leached soil solution. Within the small contribution of microorganisms, bacteria dominated over fungi. These used biomarker ratios as well as LMWOS concentrations differed widely from the ones obtained with conventional batch extraction. More research is necessary to evaluate the application of these biomarkers to soil solutions.